Meadowlarks
by igsygrace
Summary: CD version of Mockingjay by Susanne Collins. Katniss makes a different decision on the eve of the Quarter Quell that impacts her role in the Rebellion and the outcome of the war.
1. Prologue

In the silver light after a storm,

Under dripping boughs of bright new green,

I take the low path to hear the meadowlarks

Alone and high-hearted as if I were a queen.

What have I to fear in life or death

Who have known three things: the kiss in the night,

The white flying joy when a song is born,

And meadowlarks whistling in silver light.

\- _Meadowlarks_ , Sara Teasdale

 **Prologue**

The water runs over me in warm tendrils like whispering fingers caressing me, my neck and back and breasts, and I am insensible to everything except the one thought. It has taken over my conscious mind and - whenever I do give a thought to the shower I stand in - it is only to become even more keenly aware of the almost-erotic aspect of it; how it massages and drenches, how it lashes and tickles me.

When I turn off the water, the sensation itself only thickens around me. I stand in steam as if I was wrapped in someone else's breath. All I am aware of is how badly, how so very badly, I don't want to be alone right now. For a long time, I hesitate. So long I think - I hope - he might actually be asleep before I come out, safely wrapped in loose, unattractive gym clothes. My hair in wet rat tails around my face. Secure in the knowledge that, although my body betrays me tonight, HE won't.

He's not asleep, not even lying down. He has not removed the prosthetic, yet, but is just sitting on the edge of the bed, back turned to me, looking down at his lap as if lost in meditation. He's in his underwear - of course he is, and that's my fault. I commanded him to stay in my room, afraid that once we were separated, the Capitol would lock our doors shut and keep us that way. So, he had nothing to change into. The faint odor of the evening clings to him, mingling with the lavender soap - the sweet, soft, somewhat buttery smell of the glittery skin cream; the hard, desperate smell of sweat. Like me, his muscles have been sculpted by the spring of training, and the white undershirt stretches so finely across his back and broad shoulders that it is rendered nearly transparent.

I ache with resentment of him. Not this life-and-death pact between us - that's old news; but the fact that he so easily disrupts my peace of mind. And of body, too.

"So, this is it," I say, as lightly as I can manage, and he stirs, turning to look at me, an unexpressed sigh on his face.

"Just about," he agrees. He eases himself onto the bed and lies back against his pillow, crossing his arms against his chest. He smiles at me.

I wriggle my way in next to him, delicately careful not to touch an inch of him. Eventually, it will happen. In the night, I will wake or he will wake and we will seek each other's arms. Of the handful of nights that we've spent together, it has happened more often than not that I will wake up deep in his arms, face pressed against his chest, with no memory of how it came to be. But for now ….

He softly commands the lights to dim, and the night settles in around us. I wonder why he hasn't taken off his prosthetic - I suspect that, despite my objections, he plans to go to his room to change as soon as I'm safely asleep. Hmmm. Sleep will be difficult tonight. Tomorrow, we go into the arena, and my brain explodes with formless thoughts - what structure the arena will take, what weapons will be available. Who - among the tributes, so united in dissent tonight - will turn first? How will I know? Or should I turn Career and just start killing people as soon as the game begins?

I shiver, and Peeta senses the movement; I can feel his eyes looking at me in the darkness. "What?"

"Nothing," I say, not able to completely keep the tremor out of my voice. "Just thinking - about tomorrow, and …. everything."

He stirs. "Look, I am sorry - about tonight. Not for what I said, but that I didn't get a chance to warn you. I didn't know what I was going to say, until it was too late to talk to you … it was when I saw you in that dress, and you said that Snow had ordered Cinna to put you in it. I just thought - what if they had really made us go through with it - a Capitol wedding? How fake that would have felt. I mean, I know it would have been fake - but it would have also felt so … unreal. And then everything kind of came to me at once."

"You don't have to apologize. I meant what I said before. Really, the only thing that bothers me is giving them - leeway - to think about - my … personal life." I cringe all the way through that sentence, and the word "sex" evades me. Thank goodness it's too dark for him to see me blush. He called me "pure," and that still rankles; I don't know _why_ , exactly.

"Yea-ah," he agrees slowly. "But the problem with fame - and with this game we've been playing - is that - they've probably already been thinking about it."

"Oh. I guess that's true."

"I just wanted them to _feel_ something about it this time," he adds, with a quiet intensity.

There's something different about his voice - something raw and genuine. During all the conversations we've had this year - dark though the circumstances were - he was always light and comforting, as if he existed only to improve my mood. Here, at last, is the real boy, speaking out his anger. And my instinct is to soothe his mood, now. "You're good at that," I say. "At - at moving people."

"I guess so," he says, and again I am surprised by his voice - there's a little resentment in it, sorrow. "Though not for the best reasons."

I blink. "What do you mean?"

He sighs. "It's funny how separation makes you start to see things more clearly. Just - my mother. Her moods were always sporadic and unpredictable. For as long as I can remember - I've had to deal with that. To be a different person every day, if necessary, to deal with whomever she was on that day. To try to wheedle her into a better mood."

"I can't even imagine," I say soothingly, thinking of the things he generously doesn't even say - of soft bruises and hard words.

He laughs shortly. "Because you've never had to … you're so blunt. You say what you mean or nothing at all. I'd love to be able to do that. I guess that's what made it so easy - so easy to believe you in the arena."

I squirm.

"It's OK, Katniss," he adds. "I'm forever grateful to you - or for as long as I'm allowed, anyway. Come here." He suddenly unfolds his arms and I move into him, my head resting on his left arm while his right settles softly, delicately around my waist. "You outwitted even Haymitch. He was pretty sure you wouldn't be able to act that well."

I have to concentrate on keeping my breath steady as the heat of his words wafts against my temple. I wonder what is going on in his head - does he remember those arena kisses as a distant event from a regrettable time? A pleasant memory colored with regret? A constant source of frustration - endlessly replayed in a loop … _if I had only kissed her sooner, longer, more convincingly_ …?

The tip of my tongue lightly traces the outline of my own lips. Where they are usually chapped, they have been made smooth by the week's-worth of lotions and balms. Where I expected to find them dry, they are unexpectedly damp. I realize, all of a sudden, that I am at a crossroads. That what happens tonight goes one of two ways, and I am the one who … wait, wait - _what am I even thinking?_

"I'm _not_ that good an actor," I reply, after a too-long pause. "I'm just better at hiding things than giving them away. In the arena I just … I was taking my cues from you." I move my head slightly, and my lips are tickled by the delicate fuzzy tips of his arm hair. I don't know if I'm imagining the slight contraction of his arm muscles.

"Oh," he says lightly. "I felt like it was the other way around. In those life-and-death situations, I guess it can be difficult to tell."

I let my lips purse against his skin in the lightest-possible of all kisses: an innocent gesture, really - my sympathy and my regret. But innocent only if I follow up with an innocent speech. It is on my tongue - my enduring thanks for his patience with me, his assistance, something to make him understand that he is worth the sacrifice I intend to make for him. And then good-night. A dignified way to end the evening.

But instead I follow the other path: "Is it hard - for you?" I ask him, my voice sounding deep in my throat.

"Is what hard? Preparing to die in the arena again? Preparing to make sure that you don't?"

I shake my head. "No, I know all that. I mean - this. Lying with me; just lying. Is it hard for you?"

Now I know I don't imagine it - the sudden stillness of his muscles. "Hard?" he asks. "It's the easiest thing in the world, Katniss. Do you - don't you trust me?"

Again I kiss his arm, but with more deliberation this time. I have him, I think with a strange spike of excitement. It's not just that I want him - it's also that I know he wants me, too, and that he turns on my words, and we both know it. "With my life," I tell him. "But it's hard for _me_. Sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

I crook my head up to face him and his arms around me give way, loosen. I am unbound, free to go. But not really. I look up into his eyes and in the darkness I can see the intensity of his stare. "Sometimes. Especially now - tonight. All the things that remain - undone."

He gives a small smile. "I know sometimes it feels like tomorrow can't come," he says, misunderstanding me - deliberately, I think. "It feels like this is the end - there is nothing in front of us but the blankness on the other side of the precipice. But tomorrow _will_ come, and for you, Katniss, so many tomorrows."

"You don't know that. This could be the last chance - for everything. You don't know."

"Yes, I do," he says. He bends toward me to plant a kiss on my forehead. I'm sure he means it as a simple embrace, the closer to the conversation. But he can't quite remove himself - he lingers, his chin resting against my hairline. I can feel his chest move - deep - shallow - deep.

"Peeta," I breathe into the hollow of his neck.

I lift my chin and his mouth is suddenly on my mouth. There is nothing new - the familiar soft press of his lips against my wet lips. Until there is. He moves over me and his mouth guides mine open … and instead of recoiling - I _like_ it, his tongue curling against my tongue, his mouth moving as if I am a creature he is devouring, eating and drinking all at once. My mouth makes a sound I did not plan and my arms go around his neck, pulling him closer in. So: this is _true_ hunger, the kind that cannot be easily satiated. The longer his mouth ravishes my mouth, the more I need to be ravished. I am emptied instead of filled - I am hollowed, vacant - I am heartless, soulless. In the emptiness at my core, it hurts and hurts until hurt becomes pleasure, and then it spreads, from its birthplace in the hollow of my chest, tingling along my arms and down to my toes. And still I am hungry.

He lies fully over me and then the ache becomes quite centralized and screamingly intense. I find myself answering his kisses now, my mouth finding a rhythm against his and a soft keening passing from my lips to his - like the newborn cry of a child, demanding and impatient. My fingers pluck the soft tight material of his undershirt at the base of his neck.

His hand wedges down in the space between us - it cups my breast over the heavy tee and I gasp against his mouth.

He parts from me and peers into my face. But my gasp wasn't meant to stop him, and he can clearly see it in my face. And now that I can see his face, I see that it has completely changed. If I am the spirit of hunger, he is its body - every inch of his expression reflects my craving. Wordless, staring at me - breaths heavy - he removes his hand only to slide it under my shirt. It is warm and his fingers are strong. I can feel every ridge of his fingerprints against my flesh. They press their pattern lightly against the sensitive skin of my breast, his palm brushes against my nipple. I cry out.

"You _want_ me," he says, his eyes widening in surprise.

I want to tell him - it's not just about tonight. If there was going to be a tomorrow and another tomorrow and another - if I could somehow describe how this feeling, how this thing between us, has its origins in a cave, on a rooftop, in a chariot, on a rainy day with my life unspooling like a thread... But "yes," is all I can say. "Yes, Peeta."

And he kisses me until there is nothing in the world but the sound of my breath, of my cries for him, as my eyes grow dark and the room dissolves under his fingers.


	2. The Dead District

The Dead District

* * *

I push myself off of the bed.

No matter how many times I run and hide, they grab me and pull me back in. District 13 - the dead district. The example. Quotas, curfews, beatings, hangings, reapings. _Accept_ this - or suffer the same fate as the rebel district, 13. The dead district.

But actually, actually far from dead - just hidden under the earth. Not from the Capitol - no - hidden from the _rest_ of us, Districts 1 through 12, that followed 13 into war and were then abandoned. The Capitol knows that 13 crawls with life, but leaves it alone. Thriving, as much as a community can thrive underground. A hospital more sophisticated than anything that exists in the other districts. A military answering to the district president. Schools, food, computers. Equitable housing. Equal rights, within the constraints of an entire district built along the structure of military ranks. And now, rebellion again.

This is where they brought me - Haymitch and Plutarch - to lead the rebellion - or - if not to lead it - to be a key part in it. Alive, not dead, as I intended: my made-up face painted on banners to goad on the rebels; their martyr. Peeta, sad and expressive, memorializing me in front of crowds, making them remember: alive. That's what I intended.

But he's not. Or, if he is - he might as well not be. My enemy has him and my enemy hates me in a way most particularly dangerous to the people I love. It's more than my opposition to his government or his Games. It's more than the rebels' love for me, although we're getting closer. It's this private game between us. I was never quite deferential enough, and that has goaded him and goaded him. He can't just strike me with threats, punish me, throw me into another arena. He wants me ruined, somehow; he wants me loathed by the masses; he wants me to loathe myself even more than I loathe him - and maybe even then he won't be satisfied. What does he want from me? He wanted me to kill Peeta in the last arena - that's what he wanted. Or at least to let him die. To prove that everyone is wrong about me - that I am selfish and manipulative and care for no one but myself. To prove false the love story - the story that overrode his precious Game and turned the Capitol residents - the only ones whose adoration he truly needs - to me.

But I not only didn't kill Peeta … in that arena, what had happened between us could not be hid, and what had been lies between us were suddenly true. No one watching us kiss on that second night - 24 hours before I lost him - could ever doubt that we were lovers.

Certainly not Gale, who maintains a curious distance now.

One week, two, three, four weeks I've been here. It's hell. And now I do loathe myself, as painfully as Snow ever wanted, but in a way which he could never comprehend. I left Peeta unguarded, and in that one moment, it all fell apart.

I try to collect myself, sneak out of the hospital room, take the stairs instead of the elevators and go up a couple of flights to where I know there is an accessible maintenance shaft. There, I can crawl behind some water pipes and curl myself up, sobbing until the nausea returns; and then I double up, holding back puke, until the orderlies find me again, haul me back to my bed.

* * *

President Coin is a huge disappointment. I can't quite put my finger on it, either. What twitch of her fingers, glint in her eyes, jerk of her mouth made me say it to myself? _Liar_. I've no rational cause for thinking it and only about eight thousand irrational ones. Yesterday, I overheard her remind Plutarch that she told them they should have made sure to fish Peeta out of the arena, even before me - as I am so resistant to obey. Maybe that would be the best thing for her (certainly it would be better for the rebellion); but second-best is to have me here, at the mercy of my lack of information and under her control. All I know is, I expected to find 13, if it was still there to be found, offering some kind of aid to the rebelling Districts - like 8, which had successfully overthrown their Peacekeepers, only to be decimated in the retaliation. Like 12, which sat docile as a lamb. And is gone, now, gone.

But as far as I can tell, the only help they are offering the districts is my voice, on their behalf, exhorting the rebels to keep throwing themselves on the pyre of the revolution.

I sit across from her in the sullen half-light of the conference room in the command center, finger pressed hard against my temple. This is not as necessary as it was in the early days I was here, my head still ringing. But it has become one of my coping mechanisms. Reminding people that I am shell-shocked and concussed. That if I get up and walk away in the middle of their presentations, I am not rude; just looking after myself.

Which is true, in it's way. I am now resolved to stay off of their drugs, out of their hospitals. I want to stay with my mother and sister in their little living compartment. Some place I can just cry without being poked with needles, or eyed with disappointment or huffed at for my lack of gratitude. But first - before anything else I do for them - I want to go home. I need to identify the corpse. Otherwise, I won't believe it. Like Peeta, but the opposite. I won't believe he's alive until I see him with my own eyes.

"Let her go," says Plutarch. "Better to waste a day than another month. Maybe a little tour of Twelve is just what she needs to convince her we're on the same side."

Yeah - that's how this month has been wasted. That.

* * *

 _There's no ignoring me, now,_ I think, staring across the hovercraft to where Gale sits opposite me. My best friend - but you wouldn't have known it, if you just went by these past few weeks. All but avoiding me since the first day I woke in 13 and they sent him in to deliver the bad news about how my home and almost all my people were gone. Faintly echoing, when we are together in meetings, the pleas of Plutarch and Coin to throw my support behind the rebellion, of which he is a full-fledged recruit. His face is stony, but in his gray eyes I can see it - he's having a hard time getting over. He got over it before - got over the kisses in the arena, which he finally had to accept as the strategy that they were, and answered with a kiss of his own. Is he waiting, watching, to up the ante with me again? Or is he just simply disgusted with me now?

I try to look at him - objectively - through the new eyes of a woman who is no longer a virgin. To imagine the hard taste of his lips, the hard push of his body against mine. I remember how our bodies blended into each other before, soft as death as we waited for the footsteps of our prey. Naked, would we be just as indistinguishable from each other? Would it feel different - or every bit the same? They tell you … they tell you … that it's better with one you love - in some gauzy, controlled environment, compulsion and impulsivity removed. But that's part of the propaganda of romance, isn't it? Not necessarily to be believed. When it comes down to it, it's _all_ instinct and nerve-endings and flesh. Yes, it felt good, as good as everything now feels bad - down to my very bones. But it's designed to. At the end of the day, are they interchangeable - Gale and Peeta? A question that has been lingering for too long, just underneath the surface.

Would it _look_ different? Gale's skin is nearly the exact color of mine - "olive," my mother called it, a description that means very little to me. It's a soft and subtle color - the very baseline of brown. When I look at him he looks just like me - neither pale nor dark, just normal. When my hands locked with Peeta's, our fingers woven together, they made stripes, white and brown, against each other, a startling contrast. A contrast Gale is programmed to eye with distrust. Me - maybe I'm the opposite. Gale sometimes forgets - in his own sharply-drawn world of loyalties and trenches - that my family was formed in the intersection of District 12. Seam, yes, and always - but birthplace doesn't mean much to me when it comes to love.

Anyway - when I think of Peeta, I don't think of him that way. It's Gale's presence, silently judging me, that makes me do this. When I think of Peeta, I don't so much see him as _feel_ him - his heat and his strength. I don't know what Peeta sees when he looks at me. Just that, whatever it is, he's always, always wanted it.

Not that Gale has said anything, he just looks and looks. I wonder if the moments in the arena - especially that one night - replay in his head, tormenting him. I feel truly sorry if that is the case. But what can I do about it? Had I never gone into the arena, would I have ever kissed, fucked, even spoken to Peeta Mellark? Maybe not, but neither would Gale be here, today - free of the mines and the Seam, a rebel leader. This is how it is, and there is no erasing it now. The one thing had to happen for the next thing to happen. And then the next and the next.

"I'll go down with you," he says abruptly.

I sense the hovercraft starting to lose altitude and my heart clutches in my chest. What I'm about to see ... "No," I tell him, firmly. "Not this time. I …." I don't know how to explain it. I will need not only space for whatever my own reaction is going to be. I will need space to think about what my next move will be, depending on my reaction. "No."

He doesn't argue. Just looks away from me. He's decided to take it as yet another rejection. I realize that if I can read the thoughts on his face, he can probably read them all over mine - my constant concern for Peeta now mingled with a comparison to which Gale is falling - he thinks - short.

I didn't ask for any of this, I want to tell him. His emotional expectations, included. I only took one thing for myself, in a moment of profound weakness - and it shouldn't have mattered, really. But I should have known better. No act exists in a vacuum, divorced from everything else. Everything has consequences.

Once I've disembarked, lighting on the ruins of the Seam, I am firmly reminded of that fact. Where the Meadow met the fence, I am momentarily confused by the misshapen lumps all around me. Some are piles of houses. Some, I learn soon enough, are piles of bones. I enter my old house - not as cautiously as I should, perhaps. But compelled. I stare and stare up through the broken roof, up to the sky, as if trying to reconcile what should be with what is.

Up to town, skirting the Meadow, careful to watch my step so as to not violate the corpses any further. My fault in the first place. Daring, again, to challenge Snow's game. Beetee's plan, but my hand drawing the bow. Had I done what I had intended - died there - this would not have happened. And some part of my brain knew this. I was warned. But I was - as he has said - too selfish, too concerned with my own self-preservation. I even let Peeta out of sight, too willing to join in the plan that would kill the Careers. I should never have accepted those alliances. I left too much to chance. And I have paid.

Before I realize where my feet are directing me, I am there. The bakery - the place where Peeta was raised. Where he first reached out to help me - an act for which repayment has become only more and more complicated over the last year. Since there are few people from the Merchant class in District 13, I have to assume that most of them are dead. But a part of me has fantasized that maybe the town was at least partially spared and some have escaped or been taken prisoner. But it seems unlikely. Where Peeta's parents and his two older brothers lived there is nothing but rubble and the melted lump of their iron stove.

I clutch my stomach, fighting back bile. They are all gone - the Mellarks, maybe every last one of them.

The rest of my survey around what used to be the center of town turns up nothing more encouraging. The gallows erected last spring, just outside the bakery - damaged, but not enough that I can't tell what it once was. The justice building - the mayor's house. Everything is collapsed into the ground.

Except the Capitol's own private piece of District 12. Victors' Village. The twelve fancy houses built by the Capitol for District 12's winning Hunger Games' tributes stand, erect, a mere half mile from the town center. I stare down the row of houses just inside the gate. Mine, Haymitch's, Peeta's, all still intact, looking just as if they were waiting for us to come home from vacation.

I pause for a moment, then realize that I am panting. What do I do? There are no answers here. Only the corpse, which I have truly identified. My home is dead. What do I do? Returning to my house in Victors' Village would be preferable, overall, than returning to 13, but obviously unsafe and out of the question. The _woods_ \- they call me. I could never escape to them before because I had too many people to take care of, too many people who would be made to suffer if I escaped the net of the Capitol. I'm a poor caretaker, anyway; but they are safe now, as safe as anyone can be at the moment, in 13's vaults. I would not have to worry about consequences if I melted into the woods, vanished into the trees and lived out whatever of my remaining life I can tolerate on my own. Except for one thing.

Peeta.

I would never know what happened to him. I would never know. And that would not be bearable. It would not be livable. Whether he lives or dies, the question would always haunt me. The answers to my questions are not here, in 12. They are in the Capitol, in whatever prison or grave they have put the boy I … the boy I … the boy with the bread.


	3. Regardless of Outcome

Regardless of Outcome

* * *

Thirteen, of course, still expects my answers, whether or not I can provide them. As I walk with Gale toward Command, I am still just incredibly confused. I find myself staring at the communicuff on Gale's wrist - he was given it as a token of his leadership among the remnants of District 12. It's a direct line to Coin and the highest members of her command ranks. It makes me uneasy in a number of ways. One - there's a twinge of anxiety, that the people I distrust have a hotline to Gale. Two - there's a twinge of jealousy, that the person I do trust, more than anyone else here, is being partnered with people other than myself. That's how inconsistent and selfish I am. But I already knew that.

The usual crowd has gathered in Command - Coin and her top commanders, Beetee, Plutarch and Fulvia, his obnoxious assistant. But this time they are not gathered around the table, ready to pepper me with questions. They are clustered around a monitor, which is often tuned in to the Capitol's broadcasts, for them to monitor. This time, however, they seem to be watching an entertainment program. At least - there is Caesar Flickerman, the aging peacock who hosts the Hunger Games interviews. Then the camera pulls back and I see that he is interviewing someone again.

A sound comes out of me, somewhere between a gasp and a moan. And my heart jumps so hard, it hurts my chest. For a second, I think it might even have stopped. As he lifts his blue eyes to the camera - they are clear, and his face is clear and clean and polished - I am jolted back to life, and I breathe again. With my own eyes, I can see him. _He is alive._ That is not necessarily good news. So many reasons why it might be an impermanent condition - so many ways he could be made to suffer, still. But - not yet. I push my way through the gathered viewers and they part for me - this, in so many ways, is meant for _me_ , his appearance on the television. So soon after I emerged from 13. They know for sure now that the Mockingjay is alive and on the move. So here, on cue, is her weakness. Her captured partner. On full display.

I try to remind myself of this. But when I touch the glass where his face is projected, I can only feel a vast and clutching relief. For once, he is exactly what they believe him to be - the Mockingjay's lover. Just seeing him brings back that strange, manic night. No time for nightmares. Three, four times - blending into each other so it is hard, really, to count - and we were both so exhausted it was a miracle we woke before our stylists came to get us in the morning. But we woke early, and one more time … a last, more deliberate time … Peeta kissed me everywhere ... made me promise I would eventually share myself with someone else, once I was out of the Quell … thanked me for giving him the night. I didn't even try to make him promise me the same - promise me to love again, to fuck another girl - one who would deserve him more, appreciate him better. For one thing, it's not something that he would ever let me say. For another - and again, I'm self-centered this way - I couldn't really formulate the words. He's _mine_.

After that - and it was gentle and strangely quiet, his body bathed in the silvery dawn light as it pressed against mine - we dressed and waited, quietly, for Cinna and Portia to come separate us - me wrapped in his arms for what was to be nearly the last time. I hurt everywhere - oh, my god, I hurt in places I didn't know before that I had. And I thought for long moments about the strange likeness of sex between us to the hunt. The irresistible, the hungry need; your heart thumping - your thoughts, heightened, racing. Then your insides open to him, invaded. Vulnerable, I suppose, but in that last moment of vulnerability, the feeling - that rush … that moment when the very point that is the nexus of pain and pleasure is reached and it rushes like a wave up the muscles of your thighs and your stomach and your arched back. And like a blur you see that the other person - your predator and your prey - is every bit as vulnerable, your feelings reflected in his face. How he is trapped. How he is snared. Then it is over, and it doesn't really matter anymore, who is the pursued and who the pursuer.

And then the collapse, the slow death; the beginning of life.

All this I think to myself in a flash, barely taking in his words as Caesar interviews him about the end of the arena. Peeta, it seems, has been shown what I did to destroy the arena and now he has been put into the position of defending my actions. I have been branded a dangerous rebel operative - and he, too, perhaps, at least by association - but he swears that I knew nothing of any rebel plans, and that my arrow to the force field was just a lucky shot in the dark. Which is true. But it chills me to think that he is being made to account for it. Maybe even to wonder if there were secrets I was keeping from him, again. Even as I think it, he is being questioned about secrets - Haymitch's involvement (there's anger in his eyes now I note with grim satisfaction). And I've just thought through all the consequences of that - when the conversation between Caesar and Peeta shifts, slightly. With a straight face, with a reasonable tone and logical arguments, Peeta looks into the camera again, and calls for us all - rebels, Capitol - to lay down our weapons. To halt the war before it's even really got started.

Around me, the people become restless and annoyed. But it is Peeta's words that ring in my head, after his image is gone from the screen, replaced by the typical Capitol chatter. "Is this really what we want to do? Kill ourselves off completely? In the hopes that - what? Some decent species will inherit the smoking remains of the earth?"

What is he doing? What is he saying? A cease fire, now, means that the crush of the rebellion by the Capitol will be so thorough, so complete, that there will never be another opportunity to get rid of it, of the Games, in a hundred lifetimes. Behind me, the voices are more direct. Just as they couldn't understand why I didn't leap at their offer to be their mouthpiece, they don't get why a district tribute, - no matter how confused, how ignorant - could speak against their cause. _Traitor_. As if he was ever on their side. As if they gave him the opportunity.

And on this thought, I flee from the room, ignoring Coin's orders to remain, slipping out of the reach of one of the command team and sprinting down the halls. When I get to a familiar corridor, where I know one of my regular hiding places is, I make a straight shot for a door and put myself behind it - a dim and small supply room. I sit down, press my palms against my flushed cheeks, and then I can feel it - my wild and joyful smile.

" _Did it hurt, Katniss?"_

If I squint, I can almost see him, dimly, his arm flung over his eyes, not looking at me - so I can tell that he is feeling all the same contradictory things that I am: shame and empowerment, embarrassment and triumph.

Yeah, it did, a little, and the pain felt so fucking good. So covered in life.

"You're alive," I whisper.

And a traitor.

Maybe, maybe not. But Peeta was nothing but loyal to me. And he deserves my loyalty in return. At the very least.

Why did he do it? I ask myself, blinking at the shelves full of school supplies. Was he tortured into saying it? He didn't look under duress, although he definitely is a prisoner. Threats against me would be enough to … or perhaps it goes deeper than that. Perhaps he is still playing the Game. After all, it never did end with a resolution.

Maybe that's why he so emphatically insisted I was not part of the rebellion, and disavowed it himself. So that - if this does end with the rebellion defeated - I might still have a chance at forgiveness. To be presented as a rebel prisoner, with no actual part in it. This is a risky gambit, indeed. The Capitol will find its way to destroy me, one way or the other, anyway. And Peeta … Peeta has just made himself a traitor to the rebellion. Expendable. Someone to hold to account, when all is said and done.

This thought is the worst so far.

So - now what?

Peeta's words have started this whole thing in motion for me, finally. He's laid it out, put down his cards: The battles cease, or we all wipe ourselves out. But if we lay down our arms now, the hovercrafts will swoop in again. Several more districts will burn. The rebels - here in 13, in 4, 8 and wherever else; Haymitch, Finnick - me. We will be swept up for imprisonment, questioning and death. Not much of a choice.

If the rebels somehow find a way to win - then the Games, at least, will be over. But so might Peeta be. Not that he'll survive long enough to fall into the rebels' hands, anyway. Snow will cut his throat, rather than give him back to me. And even if he doesn't - the rebellion ….

Still, there are only two outcomes. And I can only really help one of them. And Peeta, in his heart, I'm sure, knows it. Maybe he even expects it. _He's alive_. He's somehow survived two arenas, and he'll fucking survive this one, too, if I have anything to say about it. But there's really only one way for me to bring about any outcome.

I jump up, knocking a pencil box off the shelf. Pencils go flying everywhere. I stare at them - the mess, so inconsistent to District 13's tidy way of life. I should pick them up, make them neat again. Instead, I just exit the room, abruptly, running almost smack into Gale, who is waiting outside the door.

"What is it?" he asks.

I look at him. I need him, too. On my side - and as an intermediary between me and Coin. But it's a lot to ask. So, I start from the opposite end - the conclusion instead of the arguments. "There can't be a cease-fire. We can't go back."

"I know." Gale sighs as he looks down at me; that look has not left his eyes - not just sorrow, but confusion; he doesn't know what to make of me and my situation, how to deal with this person whose sole motivation seems to be to secure the life of a boy who, a year ago, was nearly a complete stranger. And he can't ask me to not care this much; and I can't ask him to care more. So, I just stare back at him, wordlessly, putting my hand to my stomach. The emptiness, the hollow place. Nausea is returning.

Whatever reason Peeta had to say what he did …. "He doesn't know what they did to Twelve," I say. It's not an argument that will really work with Gale. Nothing about Gale is situational. For Gale, what they did or did not do to Twelve is only a part of his motivations. He would _never_ say anything to give the least amount of comfort to the enemy. Not with a gun to his head. Not for Twelve, not for me. I can't fault him. Just like I can't fault Peeta. But I have to forge my own path.

"I won't argue with you on that," he says to me, finally. "If I could hit a button and kill every living soul working for the Capitol, I would do it." His face darkens again with a deep and impenetrable anger. I deliberately ignore the implications. It's just the old argument he used to have with me, back in the woods at home, before any of this started. And all of a sudden, I realize that he is, finally, in his own element, but that he has been patiently waiting for me - not to get over Peeta, but to signal the start of the fight. "The question is, what are you going to do about it?"

I see it now, Peeta's hand guiding me onto the board, into the game with him. But if he thinks again that he can sacrifice himself for me … make himself expendable so that I am safe regardless of outcome … he is more wrong about that than anything else. My enemy has him and my enemy hates me in ways most specifically dangerous to the ones I love the most. So my enemy must go.

"I'm going to be the Mockingjay," I say.


	4. Impossible for Me

Impossible for Me

* * *

But my resolve trembles, anyway, haunting my sleep. I've never had dreams like this before - feeling the sensation on my flesh as if he was here in my bed with me, his lips pressed against my neck.

"That tickles," I gasp.

"Then why are you crying?" he asks me.

I wake abruptly, tears on my face. Look around for him. I just see Buttercup, staring at me in the darkness from the bunk on the opposite wall, where Prim and my mother sleep.

I slide down from my bed and tiptoe to the dresser where we keep the very few things we still own in this world. The middle drawer is mine - I have a couple of changes of standard-issue District 13 uniforms. And the handful of things that were in my possession when I was lifted from the arena. My mockingjay pin. The token that Peeta wore into the arena. A silver parachute that I had converted into a sack for carrying the spile we used to tap trees in the arena. On the last day of the Quell, Peeta found and gave me a pearl, and this also lives in the parachute. I dig around until I find it.

I take it back to bed with me, and rub it against my lips in a cool and deliberate kiss. And I close my eyes and visualize him, and the memories flicker, just like a dream.

" _For you_ ," he says, handing it to me, a small bead - but beautiful, I marvel, watching it roll around on my palm. Somewhere between white and silver, hints of pink and orange playing on the surface as it moves, capturing the light. There are oyster shells in a pile in front of me - in front of him, too - misshapen, dirty shells, starting to foul up in the relentlessly moist heat. Strange that something so beautiful - fragile-looking, but quite sturdy, really - could come out of this pile of ugliness. I don't have to strain for the metaphors - they are right here, in the palm of my hand.

I look up at him, finally - it's been hard to meet his eyes today, even during the whispered conversation about how and when to break away from the alliance in this rapidly-shrinking field of players. Last night … last night … it can't compare to what we did that night in the Training Center, I guess, but something strange happened in the middle of it - something more conscious than the desperation of sex. Something more deliberate in the kisses, like I had corralled the unruly creature of lust and it was tame in my hands, to do with whatever I wanted.

Apart from the whole Game thing, of course, and the fact that one or both of us will be dead, soon.

It is suddenly more important than ever before that it will not be him.

It is Peeta who breaks the stare, suddenly drawing back as if my expression has hurt him, and looking away. I want to say something - to ask what I have done - but Finnick's presence, a reminder, as it was last night, of the presence of the audience at large, stops me. "Thank you," I say. "Thank you."

But he is just looking at the oysters and, after a heavy moment, he returns to prying them open.

Later, as I squat at the edge of the water, washing my hands and the pearl in the warm brine, he comes down the beach to sit next to me. He is silent, watching, while I pull my silver-parachute-pouch from it's place on my waist and - after staring at it for a moment again: it is so beautiful and I've never really owned anything quite so pretty before - putting it away there. It is safe on my body now, to be confiscated after they pull my corpse from the arena. When they take it and undress it, patch it up, re-dress it and put it in a box, to ship home. I've seen so many of these boxes brought to the Seam, and with them the small brown packages, which contain the Tribute's original clothes - whatever random items were on them when they were Reaped - whatever token they took with them to the arena - whatever souvenirs they took from there. So, these will go back to my mother and to Prim - to bury with me, as usually happens. But the pearl is too beautiful to bury. They will, I hope, return it to Peeta. Something to remember me by - some token to carry with him while he speaks to the masses, reminding them what I died for.

Yes, that's good - almost satisfying. I can almost -.

"Katniss," he says, abruptly. "Last night -."

"Yes?"

"Last night we were interrupted before I got to talk to you - to ask you to do something for me."

"What do you mean?" I ask, confused for a moment before remembering that we are at cross-purposes, he and I; that we are actually opponents in this Game, more than we are allies - each of us trying to ensure that the _other_ comes out alive. Peeta's plan is to disrupt mine, so I must be wary of anything that he says.

He reaches under his shirt and pulls out the medallion that he brought in with him to the arena - his token, designed to mimic mine, a small gold circle with the mockingjay stamped on it. He pulls the chain over his neck and for a moment stares at the medallion, as if uncertain, then he presses the side of it and pops it open, revealing it to be a locket.

"Will you take this for me? I - think - I think we're getting pretty close to the end here, and …" He stretches his hand out and I see now that the pictures in the locket are meant for me. On one side, my mother and Prim. On the other - Gale. Surprised, I look up at him. The cameras are surely capturing this moment, and he is handing me away; not just back to my family, but back to Gale. What must they think, the audience that believes us to be married, that believes me to be pregnant with his child? That believes me to be in love with him? Then, I realize that he is not talking to the audience; he's not thinking about how badly this will play. I am his only audience and I am the one he is attempting to play.

I remember the promises he tried to wring from me, to move on after this, to let myself love and be loved by someone else. But he has misread me again - more deliberately, perhaps, this time. I very slightly shake my head.

He sighs, closes the locket and puts it around my neck. He gathers up my hair to let the chain slip into place and my heart races at the touch of his fingers.

"Remember," he says, "that you have people to go home to and take care of. It will be hard for you - I'm not saying that it won't - but it would be impossible for me. You can see this now, right?"

Again I look into his eyes. Our faces are closer now and I can hear his breathing. He leans in, smiling slightly - though his eyes are sad. But our lips do not meet. He puts a hand on my stomach, and in his face I can see it slipping back into place: the act, the strategy. "You are going to make a wonderful mother," he says softly, for the audience, before standing up and walking away from me, down the beach.

Impossible for me. Yes, impossible. Impossible...

"Katniss?"

Prim's voice startles me and I nearly drop the pearl. I ball my fist around it.

"Prim."

"You can't sleep?"

I shake my head. Sleep - what a strange concept. "I'll be fine," I say, dully.

"Katniss, you don't have to keep secrets from me. I'm actually quite good at keeping them myself - even from Mom."

I look at her with my sore eyes and try to remember a time when I wasn't such a complete wreck - when I could be a better sister to her. She's right, though - what need is there to keep this secret?

"I'm going to agree to be the Mockingjay."

She comes over and joins me on my bed. I can see now the look of concern and care - so beyond her years. She has been forced to grow up way too quickly. "Because you want to or because you are being forced?"

I chuckle softly at this. "A little of both," I respond. Which is almost true. "No, I want to help. No one wants to take down the Capitol more than I do. But - I'm worried." My lips tremble. "Peeta. I know he's not safe there … but he's not safe here, either. He said some things on Capitol television that … I'm afraid that even if we can somehow get him back safely, he'll be - punished by the rebellion."

Now, when I look at her, I'm searching for some sign that my fears are unfounded, that I'm being paranoid or silly. But Prim's face is very serious. "I don't think you understand how valuable you are to them," she says. "You could ask almost anything you wanted, and they'd have to give it to you."

My breath catches. Could this actually be true? Could I actually protect him this way - could it be this simple? "So - I make a pardon for Peeta part of my - agreement - to performing as their Mockingjay," I say, slowly.

"Yes," says Prim, "but how do you know they will stick to it?"

And this is another sign of how much - how quickly - she's been forced to grow. She's observed enough around here - enough over the last year - to know very well that promises can be reneged, oaths broken. "I could have Coin announce it, in public, to as many people as possible," I muse. "It's not a guarantee - but it's as good a one as I can think of." I smile on a sudden thought. This is what Peeta would do in my place, I think - and perhaps that should be a guiding principle, from now on, because it feels _right_. It is one thing to aid the rebellion - but to aid the rebellion in order to protect him: that makes it feel like I am actually doing something useful. I'm sure Coin, Plutarch - even Gale - would think my priorities need rearranging. But Peeta … I left him behind, and my debts to him are _overwhelming_. "I should wake you up more often, little duck," I say to Prim, and she smiles in pleasure. With her snuggled up beside me - and the pearl safely tucked beneath my pillow - I sleep, for once, restfully.


	5. Everyone Else's Design

Everyone Else's Design

* * *

Haymitch.

I can't stop staring at him. Or glaring. My initial glimpse of him this morning - the first in over a month - brought a spike of fear. I've heard he was in detox somewhere. I hadn't expected to see him taking so poorly to it. He's thin and sallow, as if the lack of alcohol was killing him, rather than saving him. The scratches I made on his face - on the hovercraft, when he told me that Peeta had been left behind and captured - have still not healed, and that is a bad sign. He has the look of the dying, and at first - at the very first - I feel an enormous fear. But it is swiftly buried by my loathing of him. Which is not helped by his presentation, which seems designed to humiliate me.

It was a whirlwind two days after I agreed to be the Mockingjay. Coin agreed, eventually, to my list of demands. I bargained for not only Peeta's pardon, but also Johanna's, Enobaria's and eventually Annie Cresta's (she was imprisoned shortly after the Quell ended). For Prim to be allowed to keep Buttercup. And for me to be, at the end, the one to kill Snow. Something that I've been envisioning doing for a while, but never more so than now.

But I had no time to feel good about taking control of the situation. As soon as the bargains were made, Plutarch pulled out his game plan - and it is oh, so very familiar. A costume, designed by Cinna himself; my prep team, flown in from the Capitol; a prepared speech. And Coin's announcement of her agreement to pardon the captured Victors, made as promised to the general assembly of District 13, concluded with a special twist for me. A caveat: if I don't perform, as expected, the agreement is null and void.

I perform, again, at everyone else's design.

And so far, so bad - yeah, I'll admit it. I look and sound completely uninspiring in the first propo they filmed. It's just that - Haymitch doesn't really need to take so much glee in pointing it out.

"I want everyone to think of one incident where Katniss Everdeen genuinely moved you. Not where you were jealous of her hairstyle, or her dress went up in flames or she made a halfway decent shot with an arrow. Not where Peeta was making you like her. I want to hear one moment where she made you feel something real."

Haymitch addresses a motley group, including Plutarch and Fulvia, my preps, Greasy Sae, Gale, Coin, Boggs and a refugee from District 10, a cynical guy I met in the hospital. To my surprise, frankly, Haymitch's query brings out a host of responses, from volunteering for Prim, to allying with Rue, drugging Peeta and, of course, pulling out the nightlock berries. Gale points out these were spontaneous acts on my part and then the idea is floated - the first good idea in weeks, frankly - that I be sent out to the districts - to the rebels - to the war - to draw out some of my so-called spontaneity.

This, apparently, is what Haymitch has been waiting for. I look at him with narrow eyes, knowing the expression on his face - half-pleased at having his audience figure out exactly what he wanted them to say; half-annoyed it took them so long. But his voice remains genial. "Put her out in the field and just keep the cameras rolling!"

I feel Gale stir, next to me. I want to signal him - _no_. Don't raise any objections. Haymitch, like everyone else, overestimates my ability to spontaneously act like anything, I think. At least - I've never really done it without Peeta: performed for the cameras. He was … how can I describe it? The one I took my cues from. The one who started the speeches. The one I always knew was there to pick up for me if I dropped the ball. But - I want out of this place. I want to be among the rebels. I want to fulfill my terms, free Peeta, kill Snow and then vanish into a misty future - probably in some wilderness somewhere, probably alone - but regardless, away from here.

But Gale says: "People think she's pregnant."

I jump at the words. I had almost forgotten - the lie; which, like so many of the other lies Peeta told about us, could actually have been true.

Plutarch waves away this objection so hastily I realize he had this excuse already in hand: "We'll spread the word that she lost the baby from the electrical shock in the arena. Very sad. Very unfortunate."

Very ironic.

"Even if we're careful," says Boggs, "we can't guarantee her safety. She'll be a target for every -."

"I want to go," I insist. "I'm no help to the rebels here."

"And if you're killed?" Coin asks me.

 _Oh, lady_ , I think, _wouldn't that make everything that much easier for you?_ "Make sure you get some footage. You can use that, anyway."

Well, I might not be able to say their lines with enthusiasm - but when I make my own announcement, the conviction in my voice seems to cause a flutter in the room, the slight movement of cool air rustling through the desert. The dead district. Arrangements are made, but I don't follow them. I have my own distractions. What _would_ 13 have done with a pregnant Mockingjay? I wonder.

Before I know it, the meeting has wrapped and I'm ordered to report to the remake room where I'll be fitted in the armored version of the Mockingjay outfit. But Haymitch orders me to stay behind for a moment, shooing away Gale who is inclined to linger - questions on his face. Haymitch sits across from me and stares at me for a moment. I feel like he can read all my secrets in my face - and even if he can't, I feel like he deserves to know. But I can't - I can't.

"We're going to have to work together again," he says. "So go ahead and say it."

Say it? My anger spikes again. He promised me. He _promised_ me - he agreed that Peeta was the one who deserved to survive the arena. But all the plans he made were for me. Would a reasonable person be grateful? Should I not care about my own life? But it hurts - this sense of betrayal. "I can't believe you didn't rescue Peeta," I say, looking at him very carefully. I've always thought that he liked Peeta much more than he liked me. Perhaps I was wrong; perhaps I misjudged everything.

But in his eyes, I can see it - regret and pain. And I feel like maybe I can trust him again. "I know," he says.

I'm transported back to that drunken night, the night he promised me he would favor Peeta in the arena this time, over me. I wonder when exactly the Rebellion made their plans; when they got to him, forced him to change the strategy. Or if he already knew - that night - that since they had chosen me, he had never had the option to choose Peeta. It was _my_ job to protect Peeta - and it was _me_ who failed. "Now _you_ say it."

He sighs. "I can't believe you let him out of your sight that night."

"I play it over and over in my head. What I could have done to keep him by my side without breaking the alliance. But nothing comes to me."

"You didn't have a choice," he says. "And even if I could have persuaded Plutarch to stay and rescue him, the hovercraft would have gone down. It was close enough, as it was." He looks at me with his red-rimmed eyes. "He's not dead yet, Katniss," he says, flatly.

I swallow. So - and I don't think this is feigned - his goals are exactly mine. What he gives to the rebellion now is to overthrow Snow, end the Games, yes - but not without both his tributes, alive and intact. Plutarch and Coin and Gale may have written Peeta off - an unfortunate loss for our side, but a small one, in the grand scheme of things. But for me and Haymitch …. "We're still in the game," I respond, my voice cracking.

"Still in," he replies. "And I'm still your mentor."

.

.

Back in the hospital again, my head aching and the nausea worse than ever. Images fly through my head, disorienting me every time I close my eyes. The faces of the ill - the wounded - in the makeshift hospital in District 8; the red flames and black smoke in the wake of the hovercraft crashing into the ground, as my arrows took it down. The sickening groan and the rise of the electric blue sparks as the hospital collapsed under the bombs. Everyone dead.

Well, they got a better propo out of me this time.

My wound was minor - a knick on my leg. But the concussive shocks have rattled my head again, so I'm in the darkness. Left to my own thoughts. Left to ponder the dead, more dead. And Peeta - my rejection of his call for a cease fire. Was it too direct? This - is so confusing. I need to bolster the rebellion's cause. For him as much as for anyone. But what will the Capitol counter with?

I try to concentrate on good things. Gale disobeying Boggs to run up with me to the rooftop and help me shoot the hovercraft. Plutarch's camera crew backing us up. Plutarch and Haymitch keeping our reckless behavior secret from Coin. So, while I did film some footage in the hospital, greeting the wounded, who reminded me that I always was the mockingjay to them, from the time I allied with Rue … I was also filmed with my new specialized bow and arrows, fighting for the rebellion. Crying out for the districts to rise up against Snow. I guess that was that spontaneity they were looking for.

"Katniss."

"Finnick?"

"Can I join you for dinner?"

The lights flicker on, but to a low setting, and Finnick comes in, carrying a tray. The orderly with my tray follows him. It's a light meal, which is unfortunate, since Haymitch ate my lunch earlier when I was asleep. I make short work of the broth, steamed vegetable mush and rice. Then I feel nauseous again.

Finnick turns on the television set in the room and we watch the Capitol programming with the numb familiarity of District citizens at once attuned and desensitized to it. Of course, it's more relevant to us, now, as we are occasionally mentioned on the news. But still - it is background noise, inhabiting the outer spaces of our attention with vague anxiety.

"How are you holding up?" Finnick asks.

I laugh shortly. I want to be more elated than I am. At long last, the lives I took today were not false enemies, implanted in the arena, but actual Capitol soldiers. I hunted with Gale again and it felt so good - not just to partner up with him, but after, to know that he had covered for me with Coin; I let him wheel me back to the hospital from Command this morning, and we had spoken almost happily together about the day. I did something - felt something real - something unconnected to either Gale or Peeta. Something between me and the people of Panem. Something that made me feel good, for a moment, to have survived the arena - at least until the hospital was bombed.

"That good, huh?" he says, when I offer no further response.

I look at him closely. So different from the smooth and sarcastic ally in the arena. His lover has also been taken, and his own emotions are now raw and open on his face, in his body language, in the darkness of his eyes. It must be so much worse for him, I think, because he genuinely does love this girl, Annie Cresta; has for years now, perhaps. I wonder - if there was a way I could measure Finnick's pain against my own, would it help me untangle this messy knot of emotions that I associate with Peeta? You would think that sleeping with him would have helped, but that only really answered the question that I already knew the answer to, anyway: yes, I was attracted to him, for longer than I ever let on. I had been keeping an eye on him for years, telling myself it was just because I owed him - a 'thank you' at the very least. But it wasn't just that. It was never just that.

But other than that … what is he to me? My friend, my very good friend, I suppose, but not in the way I have come to define friendship over the years of my association with Gale. Almost all the parts of my life that I shared with Peeta, I would as soon forget. Not because of Peeta, but because of the circumstances. All those hours and days and nights on the train, we talked and comforted each other, but the talks were strained, the comfort half-strategic. Peeta belonged to the Games. Our relationship belonged to the Capitol. Nothing about that did I want … should I reasonably have been expected to want. Oh, he loved me - and that, apparently, had nothing to do with the Games and everything to do with home. But that was with its own set of unwelcome rules and regulations. Something to be tolerated, to tip-toe around, to acknowledge only when necessary.

I had disobeyed all these rules - on the Victory Tour, when I insisted on keeping him in my bed at night. This after being allowed to take - for the sake of the performance - those kisses that I could hoard for myself without consequence because they were supposed to be pretend. I insisted on believing that all this was a favor to _him_ \- who wanted the kisses, who wanted my company at night. Who should have been happy to marry me. Being able to take what he wanted (almost all he wanted) because I was being punished. It was almost enough to resent him, except that he is just so hard to resent. Especially because I soon realized - when we got home and I hurt him all over again - that it must have been actually miserable for him, those nights on the train, that false engagement.

I never really _treated_ him like a friend. He is the person whose attention I avoided, because I owed him. Whose desire I fluttered away from, even as I began to rely on it being there - just being there - for me. At the end, during that desperate night that I've tried and tried to see the meaning of, he is the person I gave myself to. And enjoyed it, even more than the most honest part of me had anticipated. That girl in the cave, who really did want more kisses; that girl in Victors' Village, who glanced at his house occasionally and thought - what if, what if?

And now what is he? He is the ache, the absence, the psychic pain that feels like a chunk of my own flesh has actually been ripped away. It hurts in various locations - in my gut, on my arms and, most times, in the space above my actual heart. I guess, just like when you call out to the dead in anguish, as if it was their fault for being gone, there is a part of me that is _angry_ at him, angry for causing me this blinding pain. It makes it so hard to maneuver, to think clearly about my options and understand clearly who is really on my side.

He is the one who was always on my side.

Eventually, my thoughts are interrupted by the second of Plutarch's propos suddenly appearing on TV. This is another recap of the activities of District 8, but this time including interviews with Gale, Boggs and Cressida - talking about what we did and saw.

"Turn it off, Finnick," I say, wearily. I'm tired of this. But - "Wait!' I cry, as the propo dissolves into Caesar Flickerman's face. _Of course, of course_ , I think, my heart thumping wildly as I wait for the camera to pan slowly out to reveal Caesar's guest. The Mockingjay has now joined the fight, so a new statement must be ma-.

"Peeta?" I breathe, in disbelief. I blink several times to be sure.

Oh, it's Peeta. Barely. This is - how can this be? The boy on the screen is wasted down, far thinner than he was three days ago. He is primped and dressed up, but there is no painting over the pain and misery in his eyes, the gauntness in his cheeks. His blue eyes are no longer clear; when I can see them - he doesn't look directly into the camera at first, but glances nervously between Caesar and the floor - they seem cloudy and pale. Since his last interview, he has been starved, tortured. Just as I had feared. But how is this possible, over just three … and then, I realize; it hits me like a rock falling on my head and I can't believe I didn't suspect it before. That first interview, released immediately on the heels of my visit to District 12 - it could have been recorded weeks ago, shortly after the end of the games, in fact, and saved specifically for my reemergence. And in the meanwhile - what have they been doing to him in the meanwhile? I feel it, as surely as it is on my own skin, but vaguely. Torture that I can't even fully imagine - shocks, beatings, I don't know. This - this - how am I supposed to live through this?

And of course there is a message for me. "What do you say about these rumors, Peeta, that Katniss is filming propaganda for the Rebellion?"

Now, Peeta looks directly into the camera, and in his eyes - he can't hide it - the questions. About me and my fate - about what I'm doing, why I'm doing it. Did I know? Why was he left behind? "Don't be a fool, Katniss. They've turned you into a weapon that could be instrumental in the destruction of humanity. If you've got any real influence, use it to put the brakes on this thing. Use it to stop the war before it's too late. Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you're working with? Do you really know what's going on?"

By the end of this, my breath has become so rapid and shallow that I'm nearly hyperventilating. Finnick glances at me, which just makes it harder for me to sort through all of my feelings. The primary feeling is panic. Over the last three days, I have been able to comfort myself that Peeta, while in danger, certainly, had not yet truly been harmed. Now, every minute, every second that passes … he is being hurt. And he is being used - to spout Snow's words - directly to me. This isn't right. There has to be some way to …

"Shh," says Finnick suddenly, raising his hand. I listen and hear it - the footsteps coming down the hall, loudly reverberating in the silence. I know what this is. Plutarch and friends will be coming to spin this appearance, to give me reassurances that it isn't as bad, isn't as damaging, isn't as _doomed_ as it appears to be. I will be expected to assure him that, Peeta's words aside, I'm not questioning him or Coin or my mission as the Mockingjay. But - and here's the thing. It doesn't matter if he's speaking under duress, if he's repeating words he's been ordered to say. He's right. I do need to ask myself - do I trust these people? Do I know what's going on?

Because I really don't. And that's not the sort of thing I'll be able to hide.

"We didn't see it," says Finnick, suddenly, flipping off the television.

"What?"

"We didn't see it. You were upset by the footage of the hospital in District 8, so we switched it off."

I squeeze his hand. Finnick, somehow, understands without needing to be told. Of course he does. Like me, his concern for the rebellion is overridden in his mind by his concern - the constant fear and worry - for his captured lover.

"Gale certainly did look handsome," he is saying, cannily, as Plutarch and Fulvia enter, Plutarch's mouth already open on a speech. He looks quizzically from me to the blank television screen.

"Yes," I reply, trying to sound both slow and natural. "Camera-ready, as Fulvia already noted." I nod at the woman, without truly looking at her.

"We just saw your latest propo," Finnick smiles at Plutarch. "Nicely done. Did it air throughout the districts?"

"We - we think so."

"I was just telling Katniss … you'll make a star out of Gale Hawthorne, yet. Our first post-Games media darling."

I think about that day of negotiating with Coin - how she offered up Gale as my new on-screen lover, to replace Peeta. At the time, it only struck me as superficial - this idea that I could be choosing a lover as part of my overall look; just another accessory - as if Gale and Peeta weren't real people with real feelings to be considered, if not accommodated. But now I understand it with new eyes. Peeta is now an inconvenience to the rebellion, and his relationship with me potentially toxic to their cause.

"So you - watched the entire propo?"

"Mostly," chirps Finnick. "But the hospital footage was a little overwhelming for Katniss, so we switched it off a little bit before it ended. Anyway - bravo."

"Yes," I add, swallowing painfully. "It was really well done."

They are convinced. The relief in Plutarch's eyes is unmistakable. But I can't take any comfort in knowing that we pulled off the deception. That is the least of my worries.


	6. Maybe

MAYBE

* * *

"No, Peeta," I say. "I told you - that flower is always yellow. Not red."

Frustration surrounds me like a palpable mist. All I can see are his hands, and I don't understand - why he's not listening. Why this feels so wrong.

There were moments we actually did act like friends. In choosing to follow Gale into the dark, murky future of the rebellion, I had closed the door on the Capitol's plans for me and Peeta - I had shut down the love story and any excuse to pretend otherwise. In the simplest terms, this was my choice: Gale or Peeta; and in the broadest terms I had chosen Gale.

And yet, he did not abandon me.

All that spring - cold at first, the winter dying only with reluctance, and snow storms lasting well into March - when I was laid up with my broken ankle, he came to keep me company. Baking for me. Drawing for me. And I had been cheating again - and I knew it, and I knew it - my infirm state an excuse for me to have what I had given up the right to ask. His arms around me, every day, as he carried me downstairs from my bedroom. For a brief moment, I had achieved perfect balance in my life - a promise to Gale and the company of Peeta. But the sense of balance was a false one, and I was very quickly toppling over.

Because … if there had been no Gale. No Capitol. No knowledge of the rebellion waiting for me to take my place as their face and voice … how I would have fallen. I know that now, obviously. I felt it stirring in me then, more than once. This boy - this near-stranger - was the person I had been more intimate with than any single other person in the world. Whose kisses had come first. Whose body fit so closely and securely against mine. Nothing would have felt more natural. I remember watching him, the glint of sun in his eyelashes, the pores on his jaw, dark where his facial hair would grow, if he let it. The extra-curly hairs at his temple, and the little beads of sweat there, as his eyes crinkled in concentration at his drawings. Only his awareness of my staring pulled me out of this hypnotic state, where my imagination was starting to traverse the roads that I had cut off for myself. He looked at me, and again I withdrew. The flowers were yellow.

Not red.

I wake up, gasping, as if for air.

This is not the first time I have had this dream. Nor the second, nor the third. It haunted me during my first weeks in 13; it woke me the morning that I bled out, quietly expelling the non-viable pregnancy. Was it the force-field - the story that Plutarch decided to go with? Not necessarily - it could have been anything; the toxins, the stress, simple biology. The lie that was almost true.

Lights are tolerable this morning. Once I eat breakfast and blink at the doctor's finger a few times, I'm cleared and told to take it easy. With no set schedule to guide me and - honestly, I've forgotten the day of the week - no clear idea of what I'm supposed to do, anyway, I set off wearily toward my living quarters, only to be waylaid by Cressida.

"How are you feeling, Katniss?" she asks me, gently.

I stare at her for a moment. She did me a solid in 8 and, where once I would have been automatically leery of anyone so altered for the sake of Capitol trends, these days I have a broader view. Her shaved head and tattoos barely register with me. In a time and place where I can no longer judge enemies and allies by the way they look or the place they were born, I feel a rush of gratitude just to see this young woman.

"Dodgy - but better," I say, stoutly.

"Excellent - look, how do you feel about just a small recording session? We think a short intro by you would add to this 'you know who they are' piece."

I suppress a sigh. Then a thought strikes me. "Do you need me in costume?"

"Unfortunately, yes …."

But that's OK. I sit for an hour under the ministrations of my prep team and just listen, waiting for them to make some comment. Venia, Flavius and Octavia are good at their jobs - they've done the work of miracle-workers on my scarred body - but they've also been ever-reliable sources of gossip for me over the past year and, surely, the gossip on everyone's lips right now is the shocking appearance of Peeta on TV. Especially for these three, who have such a difficult time accepting anything that isn't perfectly polished. They would, at the least, be critical of the prep job that didn't sufficiently hide the wreck that has been made of his body.

But I get nothing from them. They chat vapidly about dinner last night, and what to expect of dinner today. As the meals here are not fit for even the slightest amount of human conversation, I am suspicious and annoyed. When I prompt them by asking if they've seen anything good on TV, Venia launches into a lengthy soliloquy about how Enobaria's Games were shown last night, but edited way down.

"You could barely tell that she had killed a single tribute," she says, shaking her head.

Well, my preps are hardly world-class liars; maybe they really didn't see anything.

I almost - almost just flat-out ask Cressida. But she's so close to Plutarch, and I don't want him to know I lied to him; not yet, anyway. So I sit in front of a generic backdrop and recite some lines I don't even remember ten minutes after I'm done. Is Peeta right? Am I just a tool for their use, unconscious of what I'm doing?

From there, I go to lunch, sitting with the usual group of people from the Seam. My attempts at hinting around are cut off by the sympathetic inquiries of my lunch companions. They console me about the hospital victims in 8, my wounds, my jarred head. They ask how it felt - how it felt - to shoot down hovercraft. It's hard not to get lost in their admiration. My arrows once helped keep them fed; now they might just free them from hunger altogether. It's a heady thought. Hard to ignore. Is Peeta wrong?

Gale comes in a little late, and takes his normal seat beside me. His expression is quizzical. Mine is quizzical. How can I hint around at it? It's impossible to even talk to him, upfront, about Peeta, let alone in a roundabout way that will get him to introduce the topic himself. "Finnick says Fulvia is going to make you into the next District superstar," I tell him.

He smiles with the corner of his mouth. "You saw the second propo?"

"I did," I say. "Last night. I don't suppose we have long to wait before the Capitol responds."

"I suppose not."

At this, my blood starts to boil. Here is a feeling I've never associated with Gale - not once, not ever. Betrayal. I wish I'd phrased it better. Made it more difficult for him to answer me without lying. But even if his answer is not technically a lie, I know that it is one, by omission. And this is unacceptable.

After lunch, Gale is scheduled for training (along with me, I suppose), which for us means hunting. But Gale has an appointment with Beetee in weapons development and I - almost gratefully - let him go. I go to the hospital, collect Finnick, and wheedle permission to take him outside with me, to keep me company while I hunt.

We walk as far out into the trees as I feel I can go without raising the alarm, remove our communicators and stash them under a bush - then walk further, out into the sun, where I can hear the whisper of a nearby brook.

"No one's told you anything?" Finnick asks me. And, after a pause: "Not even Gale?"

Maybe, maybe, maybe even Gale doesn't know. He would have felt no need to watch his own propo. It was on so late - maybe he was safely in his own quarters, oblivious to its existence. Maybe.

"Maybe he's trying to find a time to tell you privately."

"Maybe," I say, believing none of it.

The very last of the summer flowers are pale yellow and white against the ground, hiding under the bristly yellow grass, and the brown patches of thistles. Aster, I think, automatically turning to flower identification, golden and purple-stemmed.

 _"I think this is the first normal thing we've ever done,"_ says Peeta in my head, pausing with his yellow pencil balanced between his fingers.

Normal. Normal. And in that small space in time, flying by so quickly, it was normal to be with him, to admire the work of his hands, to let myself desire him, if only in the tiny spark of appreciation that I would not indulge until later.

"What are you doing?" he says, laughing at me a little as I put my head on his lap, a pile of yellow flowers in my arms. His warmth and the clean smell of soap and the slight smell of sweat - we've spent all morning in the sun - wash over all my senses. The calm of him. My absolute comfort with him. I'm reminded again of how much it puts me in mind of my father - the home feeling that is his body.

"Making daisy chains," I respond, just like a little girl.

But then his fingers weave through my hair, playing, twisting it. And this feeling isn't very familiar. It's very soft, but intimate and discomfiting. My scalp tingles with anticipation as his fingers withdraw; my pulse thickens when they return, brushing incidentally the top of my ear, the curve of my cheek. I can feel him gently, gently put my hair in casual braids, that he lets go, thrums loose with his fingers, and redoes.

"What are you doing?" I ask him, swallowing.

"Practicing my knots," he says.

The sun beats down on us. That languid, sleepy tingling of the softly-swinging windchimes. Just a breath of air on us. Contentment - so inappropriate, in these last days before the Quell - creeps over me, from my toes, up my legs, my knees … suddenly, he stops. For a moment, the silence between us is loaded, heavy. I automatically tense, wondering if what comes next is that he bends down over me and puts his mouth on my mouth. And what I should do. And what I should say. We've never kissed all alone, off-camera, sans performance. "What?"

"I just want to freeze this moment," he says. "And live in it forever."

I relax again. I can always count on him to keep all his pent-up emotions, whatever desires and hidden fantasies he has, on the other side of a line. Back behind his smiling eyes, somewhere. He asks nothing of me. Just every once in awhile, he says something that lets me know that they are still there, safely tucked away where they can't hurt me. And I've become strangely dependent on knowing that they are.

"OK," I say, looking up at him with a smile.

"You'll allow it?" he teases me.

"I'll allow it."

 _Thunk_.

A footstep, so loud it seems almost in our ears, startles both me and Finnick out of our thoughts. For me, the separation from the memory is almost painful. But then I see a buck, all unaware, has walked right by us, on its way to the water. As I've learned in previous hunts, the animals here, generations removed from regular human contact, have no fear of the arrow. It's almost with a feeling of regret that I pick up my bow and fell the beast.

The venison finds its way immediately into the cafeteria that night. It's a surprise to find myself eating something so fresh, so evocative of home. I again sit next to Gale, but in silence, listening to him tell his mother and brother about his day with Beetee. Like me, Gale has had an instant connection with the District 3 tribute, whose intellect beams out of him like an actual presence, whether he's speaking, listening, or just sitting still, thinking. Beetee has a talent with explosives, too, and with strategizing. He's the secret weapon 13 is using to find a swift and devastating way to end the war. I wonder what course this will take. Beetee, I know, is an expert at electrified traps. Gale is an expert at luring prey into traps. It seems like a natural enough pairing. And Gale's voice has a warmth and excitement I have never heard before. Who at home, besides me, ever took him seriously, sought out his advice, gave him a direct line to the District leaders? No one. I can't help but feel, despite my annoyance with him, a lightness for Gale, whose nature was never meant for the confinement of District 12 and its coal mines.

But after dinner, now twenty-four hours since Peeta appeared on television, I have to try again. As he walks me back to my compartment, I draw a deep breath and ask as direct a question as I dare. "I've been kind of out of the loop the last couple of days," I tell him. "What's been going on?"

I feel him look down at me, but I do not look up. I desperately need him to make this decision on his own. To choose me. Peeta or no Peeta. Comparisons are unfair, but if roles were reversed - if Peeta was here and Gale captured by the Capitol, my concerns for Gale would be all that Peeta cared about. At the very minimum, he would understand what it means to leave people behind. I know this as surely as I know that I am currently losing Gale.

"Not much besides working with Beetee, like I was saying at dinner," is Gale's response.

Once back in my compartment, I go to the middle drawer, dig out the pearl, and roll it around in my fingers, over and over, spasmodically. Clutching it helps hold back the tears, although it can't get rid of the swooping, sick feeling in my stomach, a sensation like I'm permanently falling down. Once more, sleep is impossible. I try to bury myself in the past again, comfort myself in soft memories like the early morning light, slanting into my bedroom, shining over breakfast with Peeta when he came up to see me, in those innocent, intimate moments before he would carry me downstairs. But it is his pained, present voice that haunts me tonight. _Find out if you can trust the people you're with._

How? If even Gale has been instructed to keep me in the dark, how much is it that I am not seeing? How much am I missing? And what can it be? We're all on the same page here, aren't we? I'm supposed to encourage the districts to rise up and join the fight to overthrow Snow. Beyond that … should I not take it on blind faith that the outcome - this Republic Plutarch has described to me - will be a better system? Something about Coin is at the heart of my unease, I guess; the unease that Peeta stirs up in me so readily, from across the miles. Coin - a person he probably knows nothing about, anyway. But I can't get over this feeling I have, a tingling sensation, almost, like when you sense someone is sneaking up on you. She runs a fairly authoritarian government, for one thing. Her trusted circle of advisers is very few, from what I've seen. Though it has expanded to include people like Gale and Haymitch - people I should trust - I have to wonder about a person who would bind me so tightly to her will, using Peeta's life as surety of my obedience. To be fair, I'm not the obedient type, and maybe she knows that. However …

However, shouldn't we be doing something - anything - about Peeta? He's being tortured to give up information about a rebellion he knows nothing of. That has to count for something. And he has to be so bewildered - I know I would be - about what really happened at the end of the Quell, and how I managed to get so heavily involved. I can't imagine. And on top of everything else, he could, at any moment, be killed.

By breakfast, I'm exhausted, cranky, in no mood for the communicuff, that bulky weight on Gale's wrist. I find myself staring at it - the symbol of the heart of my problem. Why don't I have one? As a matter of course, I'd probably reject wearing it, but I feel I should have been offered one, at any rate. If she doesn't trust me, why should I trust her?

"What?" asks Gale, after, I think, trying to engage me in a conversation I couldn't pay attention to.

I turn my bleary eyes up to him. Well - I gave him time. Two days, in fact. "Just wondering," I say, coldly, "what kind of top secret information is available to a person with your access to Coin - but not to me, supposedly so important to the cause."

He frowns. "You never show up to meetings unless you're -."

"That's not the point," I gasp, slamming my hand down on the table. Silence falls all around us, and I blush - not liking to make a scene. But I can't help it. "There are certain developments I should be made aware of. So that I'm not flying blind. But you all want to treat me like I'm on the Victory Tour - dress me up, give me your canned speeches … at least on the Victory Tour, I had a partner I knew was on my side."

The look on Gale's face graduates from stunned to angry - an ugly look that is probably reflected in my own. There - I did it - slapped him in the face with Peeta, something I vowed to myself never to do. It drags all three of us down to a humiliating circle of petty jealousies.

And then his expression softens. "Katniss," he says, his voice heavy with guilt.

That's all I need to know. That he saw the propo and said nothing to me. Why he did it - why he let Command override what should have been his better instincts - I don't know, and I don't care. I get up abruptly, drop my breakfast tray and dishes down in the discard bin with a loud crash, and rush out of the cafeteria. Fuck my schedule, whatever it is, I'm going to my bed to lie down, try to sleep and forget everything.

Gale catches up to me before I've reached the elevator, and grabs my hand, pulling me to a stop. I glare up at him.

"Why didn't you say something?" he asks me.

I nearly laugh at this. "Why didn't I?" I spit, jerking my arm free of him. "Why didn't you, Gale? And I did, by the way, last night - when I asked you what was going on!"

"I'm sorry!" The apology pushes out of his mouth, a little too abruptly to feel real. "All right? I wanted to tell you -"

"Right."

"I did - but everyone was afraid that seeing Peeta's propo would make you sick."

His answers become more revolting, not less. Because - that's a lie, too. They don't care if I'm sick over Peeta. They care that I'm too flustered to perform for them. "They were right. It did. But not quite as sick as you lying to me for Coin."

The words have scarcely left my mouth when his communicuff starts beeping. A reminder that he no longer belongs to me. Maybe he never did.

"There she is," I say, deliberately spiteful. "Better run. You have things to tell her."

He recoils from me as if I've hit him. Then, as the sting settles in, his face grows cold. He turns from me and leaves, without another word. Not even an assurance that he'll keep my secrets from Coin. I suppose I should be grateful he didn't conclude with a lie.

Sick? Yes - that's a good way to describe this current feeling. Bad enough that this ache over my heart will not fade, will not relax its grip. But I am physically nauseous over this discovery that I am being kept, like a performing animal, in a stall, with blinders on. A pawn, a piece in their ….

No, it can't go that far. I'm not so completely without agency that I might as well be in the arena, am I? But now that Peeta's said it, now that he has reiterated it, I can't stop thinking about it. How it's not funny; a war is being fought and lives are being lost, on my recommendation. It's so much worse than puzzling, annoying, even worrying - it's terrifying, this sensation of responsibility combined with complete ignorance of what is actually happening.

As I wander, somewhat aimlessly, toward the living compartments, Cressida finds me and tells me I'm scheduled for production today. I'm far too tired and heartsick to perform for anyone today. But this is the deal I made. Inescapable, until Coin is satisfied that she has got what she wants out of me.

"We're going to District 12," she says, eyeing me carefully, as my preps start wiping down my face. "We want to add it to the 'this is what you're fighting for' line and really show the Districts what actually happened to 12." She frowns at me. "If you're up to it."

I'm not at all sure that this is a good idea. Is reminding the District citizens of the power and might of the Capitol - of what it does to those who stand with me - a viable selling point to join the fight? Well, no one asked me. No one invited me to the planning meetings. Ran it by me for my input. So, it's on them. Besides, I want to get out into the open air again. "Count me in," I say.

.

.

There is a funny mark on the body of the hovercraft, just under its main doors - it's been battle-scarred. I trace the curly line where the gray paint has been scorched away, trying to imagine how it happened - what evasive maneuvers caused the missile's glancing blow to become a squiggly path. Finally, the rest of my team joins me - Gale among them, for which I am half surprised - and we take off for the short ride back home.

Gale's cold silence is a palpable atmospheric feature. I huddle unhappily next to Plutarch, who is showing me some charts and maps detailing the current status of the war and how it's been numerically impacted by the propos. Districts 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 11 have all fallen to the Rebellion now. The control of 11 - one of the largest and most important, because of the food supplies - marks what Plutarch seems to think as a turning point in the war. There is a lot the Capitol can reasonably do without, but fresh fruit and vegetables are not among them. Not long term.

He and Cressida wax enthusiastic about my performance. Coin, says Plutarch, is very pleased.

I glance over to Gale, who is buried under his own thoughts. So, he seems not to have told them. I wish I could say that was in any way meaningful, at this moment. It's too late. What hurts - what still stings - is that I gave Gale so many chances to square things with me, and he deliberately chose not to.

When we land, I suddenly realize that Haymitch is not among our group. Haymitch - the other person who really should have told me what was going on. I've put my faith in him that he is also straining on Peeta's behalf, so I try to swallow the doubt and annoyance. But when Plutarch tells me Haymitch couldn't face coming back to 12 - without being drunk, anyway - I do not bother to disguise my disgust. I need Haymitch stronger and sharper than that, dammit.

Though … as we walk through the Meadow, toward the Seam, I have to swallow down the bile that threatens to rise. I'm surprised - I am still not immune to the horrors that make up this place where I was born and raised. Cressida has us tour the Seam, film inside my house - where I am just silent, speechless - and Gale's, where he responds to Cressida's questioning with a sort of stoic sadness that I know will play well on film. In fact, she draws everything out of him, everything only I knew before. His childhood and his father's death; his siblings and his work in the mines. He describes the last moments of District 12 - that night the Games ended, the Peacekeepers withdrew and the bombs came screaming down - leading us on the path he took, after running to Victors' Village to grab my mother and Prim: from the Seam to the Meadow, through the hole in the fence the desperate escapees made in the darkness; through the woods - our places, the small paths now widened with the trampling feet of the hundreds who escaped. All the way to the lake where my father taught me how to fish and swim, and the little concrete house we used to rest in.

When we get to the lake, we're all hot and hungry. Cressida calls for a break, and we find a smooth, rocky shelf over the water to sit down on and eat. But I'm restless. After dipping my face and mouth in the cold water of the lake, I walk around the grass, taking in the familiar area, rendered so strange with visitors and with the circumstances. I try not to think it, but in my heart I know that I may never return to this place again, and I want to memorize it, even in this altered state. I walk from the water to the house, and there run into Gale. He had pulled from his house an iron poker - bent almost out of recognition by the flames - the only material item to survive the blast, and for some reason carried it with him, out of the Seam. Now, as if storing it for some later purpose - or perhaps storing it away for good, knowing also that he will probably never come back here - he sets the poker against the wall by the hearth of this house.

When he turns around, and sees me staring at him, he meets and holds my eyes. His face, I think with sudden panic, is all filled with the past. The past that was never resolved between us. His halting insistence on bringing up children that day of the Reaping. Our argument over whether to run or stay in District 12. The secrets he has been keeping from me in 13. Always he was present to me, a part of nature, of my everyday life. Like the hour, the day, the seasons. Now we are separated by synthetic schedules in a concrete domain without the sun. And our future? It is shrouded in darkness. I see no resolution of our current paths that brings us back together. They seem to stretch forward, bending ever away from each other. Gale's path seems clear - in the leadership circle of 13. It's mine, I realize, that is so hazy. Mine depends on Cinna's wings keeping me aloft until the conflict ends. Mine forks in a million directions, depending on whether or not Peeta survives the war and, if so, what on earth remains between us if he does.

God, how I resent this. Do I want to stop time - freeze it, as Peeta said - in the woods of my childhood, perpetually hungry but also perpetually content? Isn't the future supposed to be brighter, freer, filled with promise? If so, why can't I feel it?

We don't speak - we're still not speaking - so we just rejoin the others, eating lunch in the shade on the rocks. In fact, I don't want to speak to anyone, so I sit next to Pollux, the cameraman who is an Avox, and stare out at the water.

Eventually, the mockingjays gather, as they always do in a prolonged silence. One hops right onto a low branch of a young tree right near me and Pollux. I study it for a moment - this bird that has come to be my alter ego, somehow - the tufted feathers on the crown of its head, the white patches on the wings. Then I nudge Pollux - Capitol born and raised, it surely would be a treat for him to see firsthand the legendary creature: half-mutt, half-natural bird - proof that nature eventually outlasts even the power of the Capitol. So if, as Peeta fears, we do wipe ourselves out entirely during this conflict - if the radioactive bombs rain down on us and all the Districts burn to dust … nature will never truly be spent. It will adapt. It will twist itself a new shape and go on, and in the future, whatever new or adapted species comes after us will only know us and our violence - if knowing is possible - as its birth pangs.

Indeed, Pollux is delighted to be shown the bird, and we take turns whistling at it and listening to its responses. Eventually our tuneful chatter draws more mockingjays to the little tree and Pollux draws a question in the dirt: Sing?

Sing? A request from an Avox is nearly impossible for me to ignore. I just don't remember the last time I've sung for an audience. Oh. Rue. That was my last request. I sing the four notes of her "song," the notes that signaled the end of the workday in District 11. This the birds pick up as quickly as they ever did. It is easy for them, and they soon are singing it in harmony. But this sound brings a memory to the forefront - this was the sound of the arena, just before Cato and the wolf mutts came bursting through the trees.

"Want to hear them do a real song?" I ask abruptly, rising to my feet.

Why "The Hanging Tree" comes to me, I don't know. Perhaps because it is such a simple song, a repeating song, just one line changing each verse. And it's a pretty song, in a melancholy minor chord. Perhaps because I am feeling combative - trying to reconcile past and future, my agenda and 13s, Peeta and Gale. This song, which my father taught me, was forbidden for me to sing. I don't know why. The narrator, certainly, is dangerous and defiant, embracing the noose, and urging his lover to do the same. As a child, the narrator had given me the creeps; but now, singing his song - years after my mother yelled at me not to sing it and especially not to teach it to Prim - I find myself in sympathy, almost accord, with the man in the noose:

 _Are you, are you, coming to the tree_

 _Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free_

 _Strange things did happen here, no stranger would they be_

 _If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree_

Midnight. The word evokes the memory of waking up in the hovercraft after the midnight stroke of lightning met Beetee's wire and my arrow, shorting out the Games. Of my vow to die rather than be taken captive by the Capitol. But first, to kill Peeta, as well; to be free of the burden - even in death - of knowing him taken and captive, to be tortured and killed.

Future path? As I sing - I realize it. It is bound to his life and to his death. Perhaps it started in the arena. Perhaps it started with the bread. Perhaps it started even before that, when Peeta heard me singing in class the first day of school and listened for the mockingjays to fall silent at my voice. (As they have now, I realize suddenly, in the pause at the end of the last verse - just as they did for my father. The song ends, the birds are silent, until … yes, they take up the song.) Whenever it started, whatever this is … if he dies, I see no future that isn't a gray haze. If he lives ….

That, too, I think, watching Gale's back as we hike through the woods back towards town, is hazy. A lot depends on the repercussions of the night we spent in the Capitol. How real were the emotions, the desires? How lasting were the effects? Impossible for me to tell - foolish of me to ponder - with Peeta's life hanging by a thread.

And what to do with Gale? I wonder, realizing with a start that perhaps my anger at him, my testing him, is a way to push him away, an act of cowardice I'm surprised even I am capable of. To make easier the path that leads to Peeta. But if I went that route, it would taint both relationships. And that would be unfair to all of us. If only there was a way to retrieve it - our past relationship, to make it present again. There has to be some way to make room in my life for both of them.

So, when we reach the rock that was our look-out over the valley, and Cressida stops to film us there, I find a berry in the brambles, pluck it and toss it into the air: "Happy Hunger Games!" I chirp. "And may the odds -."

As if in slow motion, the berry arcs toward his mouth. He captures it, keeping his eyes on me. There is a measure of suspicion in them, but there is also too much of the boy who has been my best friend for five years. "Be ever in your favor," he says, completing the sentence, though without the voice that mocked Effie Trinket's lilt.

We sit on our rock, bodies together as they always were and at last, satisfactorily, the past is drawn out and it is present all around us. Laughing, we relay stories of our rebellious life outside the fences of District 12. And it was a good life - running from angry bees, confronting wild dogs, avoiding skunks. Not harsh enough to be looked back on with weariness. Nor soft enough to have impeded its prepping me for the Games - which, in fact, it did. Looking back on it now, I can taste the golden sunshine, hear the hush of fallen snow, see the happy smile on the boy's serious face. I don't know why in retrospect he is so much more handsome than I noticed at the time. It was the purity of it all - the world unencumbered by hunger or punishments or discord. The world before sex and death drew a line between us. Ever since then - ever since the arena - I've had to hop back and forth over that line, just to be in the same universe as Gale. That was not just the Capitol, but Peeta, also - drawing me protesting out of childhood, into the sullen world.

Then Cressida ends the segment with a question about translating our hunting skills to real life. And when Gale simply calls it "long overdue," the present - with its paths wheeling us toward separate futures - comes crashing back in. It unsettles me as we walk back into town. Since a response to Peeta's interview is necessary, I suggest we film at the site of the bakery. Time to smash up _his_ past, I think coldly. Time for him to question his captors, their motives. You want a cease fire? Tell that to the dead of District 12 ….

Then my bad mood is heightened by Cressida having Gale recall his whipping, show off his scars. I walk to my home in Victors' Village to see what I can find to bring back to my mother and Prim.

As I'm gathering the supplies from the kitchen cabinets - medicine and spice bottles - Gale enters on his silent feet. I startle when I turn and see him there, leaning against the dining table. I can't quite read the expression on his face - just that his eyes are deeply sad.

"This is where you kissed me," he says.

I blush. He was unconscious at the time, or mostly, anyway. "I didn't think you'd remember that."

"Have to be dead to forget," he says; perhaps he means to flatter me into a better mood, but this kind of talk only heightens my unease. "Or perhaps not even then. I'll probably be waiting forever, like that guy in 'The Hanging Tree,' for an answer."

And I can't give him one - not the one he wants.

Tears - actual tears - gather in his gray eyes, make them shine like platinum. A sob rises up in my chest. Part of it is his pain, which I feel so keenly I would do almost anything to erase it. But part of it is my pain - the knowledge that, no matter what I do or say, Gale is ready to move forward. He's not interested in carrying on as we did in the past. I am taken by a sudden desire - to kiss him now. Just gently, on the lips. To replace the sadness in his eyes with something else. To see how Gale's kiss would taste now that Peeta's kisses are no longer for show. But - it's impossible. Maybe I acted with abandon on that night, throwing purity out for desire. But this is me in the daylight, in my home, in the dust of my town, in the company of my oldest friend. Having given everything to Peeta, I can't now give anything to Gale.


	7. The Thing That Had Changed

The Thing That Had Changed

* * *

Back in the hovercraft, Gale sits next to Cressida and they hold a long conversation in low voices. A smile almost breaks his face at one point and I try to figure out how I feel about this. In the past, I've been possessive of his company, jealous of the threats from other girls who sought - and I'm sure gained, in many instances - his attention. Back then, no one offered him the kind of companionship - platonic, pragmatic - that I could. But everything has changed, and, anyway, I've given all rights away to feel that way. And, in fact, I don't. Gale's mood being smoothed over by someone else? It's a bit of a relief, to be honest.

Plutarch is talking about weapons.

I attempt to ignore this. But he is so enthused, his voice booms over the noise of the engines. He speaks of weapons that, if they were still available for use, would end the war swiftly and without the need for Mockingjay speeches or inventive traps designed by Beetee. Missiles guided by systems in the outer atmosphere. Aircraft that fly without pilots, controlled remotely. Biological weapons that, once deployed, kill the nerve system or disrupt cells, so that massive death - over a radius of miles - is simple and instantaneous.

"You're making that up," I say to him, absolutely nauseated by what he is saying. I suppose I should not be surprised that a species capable of throwing children into an arena and calling it entertainment is also capable of such dispassionate, wholescale slaughter. But I am.

"Do you know how many people used to live on this planet?" asks Plutarch.

I shake my head. Of course I don't. I don't know how many live on it now. I've been brought up in complete and thorough ignorance of such matters. Our ancestors might have been as green-skinned as Octavia and walked on their hands, for all I know about it. If I felt like engaging Plutarch further in discussion, I'd ask him why, given what Peeta said about our precarious numbers, he would want to kill that many more - even people from the Capitol. But I don't want to engage with him, and I don't want to discuss Peeta with these people who have so clearly written him off. But it makes me sad. Not to be tribal about it - tribalism has its dangers, including making it easier to see other people as enemies, without much provocation - but he's talking about massively killing off his _own_ people, those silly, foolish, vaguely naive citizens of the Capitol. But Plutarch seemingly considers himself above such things, such people, even his own. An exception. An elite. And this is the person guiding my message.

Gloomily, back in 13, I return to our compartment, kick Buttercup off of my bed and fall asleep. My sleep is so sound, I dream of next to nothing. The next morning, Prim wakes me up before leaving for her shift at the hospital; she's let me sleep all the way up to breakfast. I make it to breakfast just as it is about to end - I've missed Gale, apparently - and I eat, dry-mouthed and untasting, then head for one of my favorite hiding places - the school supply closet a floor up from the cafeteria. There, I curl up on the floor, try not to think about Peeta, try not to think about Gale, and the mental exertion of these attempts knocks me out. I nap until dinner.

At dinner, I eat pea soup and try to bolster myself, try to find mental strength again. And physical strength, too - I'm so tired. I've never felt so tired. I still have a job to do, a boy to try to protect. I wonder if they will show him the footage of District 12. Footage of Gale and me. I wonder what he will make of it all - if it will cause him to despair, to give in. That's not like Peeta Mellark, but who am I to say how he is being affected by the torture? I think of the bruise his mother gave him when he threw me that bread - how horrible it was to imagine it, just that amount of pain. And how horrible it was to think about a mother laying her hands that way on her young son, just for some kitchen accident. This thing - is unimaginable, beyond my capacity to understand, let alone come to terms with or function with. I have to keep going until I can stop it. I wish - I wish I had the resources, the knowledge, the courage to say - can we not target the place he is being held, somehow rescue him from his captors?

Perhaps I can work on that. Haymitch. I need Haymitch to straighten up and actually help me.

Boggs finds me as I'm leaving the cafeteria. I am unexpectedly pleased to see him. Am I going to be included in some actual decision-making, or at least get some advanced information about something?

"Ignore the rest of your schedule," he says.

"Done," I answer, wryly.

Boggs' look of amused exasperation is so familiar to me now, I relax as I fall in step with him toward the elevators. Boggs has the sense of humor, the sense of proportion, that is absent from most people around here. I've seen him carrying around a little boy, I think, and I would really like to meet his wife or partner and his family, in general. These might be people I could deal with.

"Why do they want me in Command?" I ask him. Boggs' duties are a bit above chaperoning the Mockingjay around 13, so I wonder if they've been trying to find me for a while. "Did I miss something?"

"I think Cressida wanted to show you the District 12 propos, but you'll catch them when they air, I guess."

It's a mark of how comfortable I feel around Boggs that I reply: "That's what I need a schedule of. When the propos air."

He gives me a look - like he knows or guesses what I've left unsaid. But he doesn't say anything. He's discreet that way.

Command is crowded, but there's a seat at the table in between Finnick and Plutarch, so I take it, thinking how I have one of the better angels of the rebellion on my left hand, and one of the better devils on my right. I glance over at Haymitch - looking no better nor worse than the last time I saw him. At Coin - who is reading some notes, as unflappable as ever. Gale, for once, is absent. So is Beetee.

All the monitors are filled with the current Capitol feed, which is a gardening program. This hardly seems worth Boggs' time to hunt me down. "What's going on? Are we going to watch the District 12 propos?"

"Maybe," says Plutarch heartily. "Beetee has finally figured out how to break into the Capitol's programming."

"What?"

"There's live programming tonight - Snow will be making one of his addresses - and we're hoping to disrupt it. Maybe with the District 12 propos, but I don't actually know what Beetee has planned. I left that up to him and Cressida."

Beetee - I guess he's down in his office in weapons development, and Gale probably, as well. I find my anticipation rising, along with my anxiety. All my hopes and fears about the filming we did in 12 - the range of the various consequences for Peeta - come rising back up. I feel the presence of Finnick next to me so strongly - how he must be concerned about this, too, at least to some extent. I wonder - since he now, too, has contributed propos to the cause - will they taunt him with Annie as they have been taunting me with Peeta's appearances?

So, when Snow appears on the television, I close my eyes for a moment, disturbed by his smiling, obnoxious face. But I feel Finnick stirring next to me, and I open my eyes in time to see the camera panning out - as it has for Caesar's interviews - to slowly reveal his companion. And again, it is Peeta.

I almost jump. Only a couple of days have passed since his last appearance startled me. But a couple of days is apparently all that is needed to wreck even more havoc on him than before. (Has he actually ever been "live" for these interviews? Is he now?) He's sitting on a tall stool, tapping his left foot in a strange rhythm - like a heartbeat with a skip in it - and, though he looks directly at the camera, his gaze is unfocused. Worse. It is angry and unsettled. I've never seen quite this look on his face - I've seen him angry. I've seen him confused. This look radiates both at once; it swirls around, almost palpably blurring his features. His entire body strains - I can see the clenching muscles in his neck - against invisible bonds. His eyes are pale, drained; they don't even look like they belong to him.

Dramatic music swells and a huge map lights up in the wall behind him. It's like he's one of the Capitol news reporters reciting a list of rebel incursions and victories as video plays in the air beside him. But every word he speaks sounds forced, resentful - strange. It's difficult to watch - it must be painful for the Capitol citizens to watch, as used as they are to smooth, smiling, blank-eyed reporters. And his news - if you pay close enough attention to parse it out - is not comforting - not for the Capitol, anyway. This is not normal propaganda. No - to put Peeta on display like this is merely to show that, one way or the other, Snow holds him, tightly, in his grip, to do with what he will.

This, again, is designed for me.

And then - pop! - Beetee is in. Peeta is replaced on screen - by me. They have started - as if expecting Peeta to be involved somehow - with a shot of me walking toward the wreckage of the bakery. After a few seconds, it's gone - and, for a moment, Peeta is back. Truly back. For just an instant, his eyes look puzzled, but clear - concentrating, thinking, trying to figure out what all this means. But this doesn't last long before he's again saying something about a damaged water plant.

For the next few minutes, it goes like this. Peeta's droning voice is interrupted by me, by Finnick, by me, by Finnick. It's like a tug-of-war between the rebellion and the Capitol - the broadcast flipping back and forth. Eventually, the Capitol gives up, the broadcast cuts to a still shot of the Capitol seal, and I look to Haymitch. He meets my eyes, and he has no comfort to offer me. Dread is in his face. I want it to stop. I want 13 to let go of the airwaves, let Peeta finish saying whatever they are forcing him to say so he can be sent back to his prison cell and left alone. If what is keeping him alive is this sick job they are making him do, then let him do it. What does it matter? The Capitol residents are useless - even if riled up to fight the rebellion, they are soft, weaponless. The rebels will know better than to be swayed by the manic words of a captured tribute. It doesn't matter.

Then they are back, Snow and Peeta. And Snow - clearly upset, though his face contains all emotion - asks him if he has "parting words" for me - a turn of phrase that chills me to the marrow.

But Snow has overreached. While I wait, breathless and sad, for Peeta to chastise me and the rebellion again, his face undergoes a series of painful contortions, and when he speaks to me, it seems to come to him at great personal pain and expense. "Katniss … how do you think this will end? What will be left? No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts. And you! … in Thirteen! Dead by morning!"

At this incredible speech, I rise to my feet, gaping. Off camera, we can hear Snow cry out: "End it!" The rebel video snippets start breaking in again, horrifyingly, while the aftermath of Peeta's warning plays out in between. His mouth moves soundlessly as he stares at something beyond the camera that is pointing to him. Suddenly, the camera is knocked over and all we can see is tile floor. There are shouts, blows. Then suddenly I hear him cry out - in pain. And a spray of blood spatters the tiles.

.

.

" _You were dead. Your heart stopped."_

Peeta looks at me like I'm going crazy, but I can't explain it, why the sobs are coursing out of me.

There is a distinct difference between a living body - even all the way down into the deepest coma - and a corpse. Death is many things; but most importantly, it is so very still. I've seen it too many times already over the course of my seventeen years. You see a body … speared by the Careers or simply starved to death … at first it is very possible to mistake it for a sleeping figure. In that first, initial relaxation of the face - before rigor mortis - death does look exactly like sleep. But as you stare, as you approach, it is the utter stillness of the body - all energy, all spark, all quiet breath gone - that marks the difference.

So it was, that first day of the Quell, when Peeta touched the force field and, in the moment that seemed to stretch on and on - before Finnick came to massage his heartbeat back to life, to lend him his own breath - I could feel it. Nothing. The absence. Everything about Peeta that truly was Peeta switched off as if by a light switch. That moment is preserved in my mind so that there is always a place inside me, a universe contained in a fraction of time, where Peeta is dead. This moment returns in dreams sometimes, to haunt me. The absence. The ache.

Just that morning, his warm lips had kissed me - not just my lips, but all over my body. The backs of my knees. The hollow of my back. And now those lips were cool against my cheek as I pressed against them, listening for breath. The warmth of him - that is the main thing you miss in that universe where he is dead.

" _It seems to be working now."_ And, as if to confirm his words, I had returned to his lips and they were warm again.

I open my eyes, blearily, to the sound of a dull, but loud explosion, and sit up abruptly in the darkness. I'm surprised I actually managed to sleep, on this night that I've possibly watched Peeta killed - certainly witnessed his beating - live on television; nearly lost Prim and Gale, who were the very last evacuees to make it into the bunker before the bombs started falling; and am now entombed very deep underground while the Capitol pounds 13. And this is how I know that Peeta is probably dead - or will be soon. Because his warning was sound. Upon his words, Coin called an emergency mandatory drill and we descended into 13's deepest levels. Within minutes, the Capitol bombs were upon us. I don't know by how much, but I am sure that Peeta's warning saved many of us.

It feels like it's been years since then, not weeks. _Peeta_ … I mouth his name into the darkness. _Are you alive?_ I can't believe I have to go through this again - the near certainty that the Capitol has killed him, the paralysis of not knowing for sure. And the worst of it is, it is even more directly my fault, this time. I don't know what they would have done with him if they didn't need him to bait me. Would they have killed him long ago? Or would they have actually let him go - once it became obvious that he had no part in the rebellion? I am the person on whom his life or death hang - maybe both, ultimately. And I feel like I should have found a way to manage it all better.

.

.

For three days, holed up in the bunker with the rest of District 13, this numbing dread is the state of my mind. My outer affect is quieter than normal, but not really by much, so I don't think anyone but Prim actually can sense what is going on with me. Gale keeps to his family's area; sulking, or giving me space, I'm not sure which. I don't know what he wants from me. If I asked him to switch off his feelings for me, he would laugh and point out the impossibility of that. So, he should know, without sulking, the position I'm in. Perhaps I'm being unreasonable again, but what choice do I have?

I introduce District 13 to "Crazy Cat," a game in which I torment Buttercup with a flashlight - keeping the spot of light dancing too quickly on the concrete floor, or too far up on the concrete wall, for him to ever catch it. And in the midst of this, realization comes to me. This is the exact game Snow is playing with me. Bait? No, Peeta's use to him is far less humane. If he would exchange him for me, that offer would somehow already have been presented. Peeta is the unreachable thing he is taunting me with, his method for driving _me_ crazy. To understand … the words I say against the Capitol will be taken out on Peeta. If I were to stop, Peeta's use ended, he might kill him. If I were to publicly recant the Rebellion - thoroughly debase myself to him - Peeta's use would again be ended, and he would most certainly kill him, just to twist the knife that much further. It is in the suspense of the game that Peeta's life is preserved.

As always, between Peeta and me, there is a horrible dilemma. No matter what choice I make, I cannot save him, only minimize the damage. To move is to hurt him. To stop is to kill him. Prim said it - on the first night of the attacks, that Snow would not kill Peeta, not right away, because then he would have no one to use against me. And now I understand the extent of it.

That night I lay awake, feeling nauseous, as usual, and holding myself as rigidly as possible, to keep myself from shivering apart into a million pieces. Now the ache, vaguely located in the vicinity of my chest, is a searing pain directly in my heart. I don't know what a heart attack feels like, but this is how I've kind of imagined it. And I don't care. Let it come. This way, I won't have to live with him dead and he won't have to live with me dead. We'll be dead together, finally resting. Removed from the horrors of this world.

Eventually, I force myself stiffly up and tiptoe out of the little alcove in which Prim, my mother and I are waiting out the bombing. I wander around - I know I've seen him in this section of the bunker, somewhere - until I find him. He's huddled on a bunk, a little battery-operated light propped up on the mattress beside him, methodically tying and untying knots in a small length of rope. This has been the activity that has kept Finnick more-or-less sane during all these weeks here in 13, where he's been so wrecked, so unnerved by Annie's capture, that he has not even been able to leave the hospital. I stare at him for a moment with sympathetic eyes, before I demand his attention.

As I explain to him about my revelation, and see the confirmation of it in his softening expression, the ache inside me grows until I really want to cry.

"This is what they're doing to you with Annie, isn't it?"

And I remember, too, that Finnick actually did warn me about this, on the hovercraft that pulled us from the Quell.

"I should have warned you earlier than that," he says gloomily, studying my face. "Or shut up about it, since it was too late to do you any good, then … the problem was, I didn't understand, when I first met you."

"What?"

He looks down at his rope. "We all knew your romance strategy in the first games was an act - at least, those of us in Haymitch's inner circle. The one thing I didn't realize at the time - the one thing Haymitch didn't tell me - was that it wasn't really an act on Peeta's part."

I squirm uncomfortably.

"Nothing I saw on the Victory Tour convinced me anything had changed. In fact, he looked almost as miserable as you, which I thought meant that … that you were both being forced to spend time together, now. When you were reaped again, we all thought you would continue your strategy, and it really wasn't until Peeta hit the force field in the arena and nearly died that I -."

"That you what?" I ask, although - remembering my emotional outburst at the time - I think I know what is coming.

"That I knew I'd misjudged you," he says, looking up at me again. "That you do love him."

I part my lips on these words. Words I have never said.

"I'm not saying in what way. Maybe you don't know yourself. But anyone paying attention could see how much you care about him."

It's funny how I thought he'd say - the other thing. That it was obvious to him that we had been intimate. Maybe that's what he means, but … no. Because - what would Snow care about that? In his eyes - as in Coin's - one lover is interchangeable with another. That's what Finnick means when he says it was too late to warn me: I tipped my hand that day in the arena. _Convince me_ , Snow had said. Convince me that you love him. That was my task on the Victory Tour. But it was not until that day in the jungle, under the sweating pink sky, that I finally did convince him. And handed him this weapon to use against me.

I move, Peeta is hurt. I stop, Peeta is dead.

Snow has already won. He's beat me. Maybe I'm not broken, yet; maybe I can hold on a little while longer. But it doesn't matter. At a certain point, I will no longer be able to tolerate this game. I'm already crumbling.

 _You love him_. Finnick's voice seems to whisper the words again. I feel a rush through my blood - similar to the rush I felt in the arena, when we kissed. But this one is tinged with fear, with a sick feeling. I withheld everything from him - and I took everything. His company on those nights on the train. Those weeks after I broke my heel. And finally, finally when I gave him the one thing ... I could not keep it out of my face, the thing that had changed between us; and I put a target on his back every bit as dangerous as the one that was already on mine.

 _You love him_. Of course, I do. It wasn't just desperation or anxiety and it wasn't just lust that night. I could never have done it had I not known, deep down, that I did. In what way do I love him? I asked myself the same question when I confronted my feelings for Gale, and there were no answers, really. Gale - is Gale. Whatever it is - this thing with Peeta - it includes what happened between us that night; that night, which I can finally understand outside of a vacuum. Which I finally understand was a culmination of all the warm and soft and hard and hungry feelings that had been growing between us.

When did it happen? I muse. And what does it mean?

And then I remember that I have doomed him - by loving him. And I wish, for his sake, that he had never met me. Because he has done absolutely nothing but keep trying to save me. And though I tried to do the same, I could have done better, and this final failure has resulted in catastrophe.

"How do you live with it?" I ask Finnick, choking.

"I don't, Katniss! Obviously, I don't. I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there's no relief in waking." He looks at me, and my stunned expression seems to give him pause. "Better not to give in to it," he says. "It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart."

That sounds about right, I think to myself. Because I can tell - I can sense - that if I do give way, do break into all these pieces, there will be no coming back from it.


	8. Alive and Well, pt 1

Alive and Well, pt. 1

* * *

Finnick provides me a distraction - his own small length of rope - and I take it back to my area and spend the rest of the night with it, making knots. And it's not to forget Peeta. It's to focus my mind on the mundane, the unemotional - the thing I can control rather than all the things I cannot. That night, I twist the length of rope into knot after knot … Buttercup, curious, hovers around me and bats down the ones that I present to him for inspection … and as my hands work, compulsively, clarity does come to me, for the first time in many days.

I affirm to myself that I do need to hold myself together. To always remember that what is happening to Peeta, to me, is Snow's doing, first and foremost. That Peeta and I have been caught up in this game, against our will, for the past year. That Snow wants me weak - powerless, trapped in guilt and pain. So, I must be strong. Peeta would want me strong - and there may come a time, soon, when he will need me to be strong.

In the morning, I am still whole and I am beginning to think I can face anything, especially once Coin decrees that the Capitol bombing has ended and we can leave the lower levels and return to the regular living quarters. As ours were in the top level, and likely to have been destroyed, we will be assigned new ones. We've just received our assignments and checked out when Boggs finds me and pulls me out of the line. He also finds Finnick and Gale. I'm so used to this now, that I don't protest or question it, just follow Boggs up the stairs several levels until we run into an elevator, and take that up, but just a few more floors.

This is a duplicate of the main Command Center further up. I guess this is where Coin and everyone rode out the bombing. They certainly all look like they've been sleeping here for days - or, avoiding sleep, more likely. The regulars are here: Coin, Plutarch, Fulvia, Haymitch, Cressida, and Beetee. Someone has brought out some coffee and it's passed around in small paper cups. Plutarch hoards his as if it is precious.

"We need all four of you suited up and aboveground," Coin says, gesturing toward us as we enter. "You have two hours to get footage showing the damage from the bombing, establish that Thirteen's military unit remains not only functional, but dominant, and most important - that the Mockingjay is still alive. Any questions?"

"Can we have coffee?" asks Finnick.

Before I can even object, I am looking down into a small paper cup halfway filled with the dark, black liquid. I'm not really a fan. I would drink a hot chocolate - my god, it's been months since I've even had the chance - in a heartbeat. I hate the bitter taste of coffee. But, since I was up all night, maybe it will give me the push I need for the next two hours. Finnick pours some cream in my cup, which transforms the liquid into a nice, delicious-looking creamy brown. "Want a sugar cube?" he asks me, and I look up with a smile, because he has used the same lightly self-effacing, seductive tone that he used that night we met, at the bottom of the Remake Center, waiting for the beginning of the parade.

"Here," he says, with a wry smile in return, "it improves the taste." He drops three sugar cubes in the cup and I watch them dissolve in the liquid.

My prep team arrives to usher me into a side room to get into costume. I pass Gale and note that he is staring at me with a disturbed expression. Me and Finnick. What now? I think wearily. Does he think something is happening between me and _Finnick_? That I just fall for every young man I ally with in the arena? Maybe he noticed me headed towards Finnick's last night - I would have passed his family's area. I blush - and then feel angry. If he actually wanted me to seek out his company in these situations … what does he want me to do? I can't talk to him about Peeta, not like I needed to last night. And I've been trying so hard - for so long, really - to spare his feelings as much as possible. I don't know - I still don't know - what it means to love Peeta, and to also love Gale. But I do know this: I have a job to do and it is a delicate and dangerous job. I'm playing with lives, Peeta's as well as a host of unknown lives I'm influencing - or not - for the cause. Gale needs to swallow his suspicions and jealousies and just let me _do it._

The coffee makes me feel weird - like all my muscles are stretched too thin and starting to tingle with the strain. My eyes are jacked wide open, but I also feel like yawning. As we find a free tunnel that we can follow outside, even the sun feels wrong - it hurts my eyes at first, and I blink fruitlessly for a few minutes before I can actually see. When I do, it is to marvel at the beauty. We have emerged into the woods and the summer is passing. The air under the pale blue sky is cool; the leaves in the trees are starting to turn. I reach up to touch a low branch and one breaks gently away and sticks to my palm: the green leaf rimmed with bright orange. I stare at it a moment, struck down to the heart by the sadness and the beauty of it.

"What day is it?" I ask the leaf.

"September starts next week," Boggs says.

September … July gone and almost all of August. Five - maybe six? - weeks, Peeta has been held by the Capitol. The leaf trembles in my hand and I frown at it. This is not good. My breath quickens.

We start to run into craters and debris, random chunks of concrete and steel, until we get to a major site of destruction. We are in a field of broken concrete - the remains of the top floors of District 13. Across the wreckage, I see the older wreckage - the bombed out remains of District 13's Justice Center, before it was destroyed by the Capitol at the end of the Dark Days.

My mind flitters in a jittery manner between these two sites of destruction. The fake one - the pageant, 13 exiting the stage, the Game. And the real one, the one that is triggered by me - my presence, my voice. But still, really, a game. Another deadly game.

"Anyone on the first - ten levels or so - would have been killed," notes Boggs.

"Can you rebuild it?" asks Gale.

"Not anytime soon. That one didn't get much. A few backup generators and a poultry farm. We'll just seal it off."

"How much of an edge did the boy's warning give you?" asks Haymitch, softly.

"About ten minutes before our own systems would have detected the missiles."

I swallow. Ten minutes isn't much, but … "But it did help, right?" I ask Boggs.

"Absolutely," he answers. "Civilian evacuation was completed. Seconds count when you're under attack. Ten minutes meant lives saved."

Relief washes over me, and I remember, with awful clarity, the pattern of Peeta's blood on the floor. That the information he risked hurt - maybe death - to relay - was valuable. I could not have borne it otherwise. And - _Gale, Prim_ \- I think suddenly. The last of the evacuees to make it to the shelter. Peeta might have saved them. Another enduring debt.

We make our way across these broken rocks until the ground dips into a crater, just in front of the Justice Building. Then Gale cries out in alarm, and points down. At first I literally lose my breath - I see the splash of red, so similar to the pattern in my head. On the crater floor are sprinkled - roses. A couple dozen of them. When I first went home to District 12, I found fresh white roses in my bedroom; Snow's token. Roses that could not have been there more than a few hours. I took it at the time as a sign I was being watched, but there were so many other things competing for my attention at the time, I had let that alarming fact go, half believed that my crazed mind had imagined it. But Snow clings. Like that scent - that unnatural rose scent - clings to the nose.

These are not white roses. Those are unique to me and Snow. These roses are pink and red. Just like the roses that decorated the training center during our interview with Caesar at the end of the Games - me and Peeta, curled next to each other on the loveseat, surrounded by the romantic blooms.

Everyone is alarmed and confused, and I try to explain - panic mushing my voice - as best as I can about how Snow uses roses to convey 'messages' to me - cryptic, perhaps, but that is his way. A couple of soldiers collect the roses, carefully, to take them away for testing - a necessary precaution, but I know in my heart they will find nothing particularly poisonous or dangerous. Not to anyone besides me. They are meant to knock me off my guard - to knock down my strength and remind me that I am weak. That he is watching, that he knows the heart of my weakness and he controls it.

I swallow, compulsively, try to shake off the nervy feeling that comes from the coffee on top of a night with no sleep. But all I can think about is Peeta - bloodied, beaten, driven mad, killed, thrown into an anonymous grave and covered with dirt. I can see his pale, gray face, his lidded eyes. The blond waves flattened against his forehead. I try to remember that day - he wore a red shirt. I remember being so upset and unsettled by the interview that I pressed my face against his side and closed my eyes. He had not regained his pre-Game broadness, yet, but he was still firm and strong - and warm. Warmth radiates from him like the glow from an oven. And his scent … despite his jokes about showers in the Capitol, he never smelled like roses. He smelled vaguely like spring grass, and a little like the buttery moisturizer that Portia always liked to use on him. I can almost smell it ….

As Cressida and Messalla direct Castor and Pollux into their places, I try to keep this particular memory at the top of my mind, try to somehow draw strength from it - that safe universe contained in Peeta's arms. But I'm shaking uncontrollably, and I know this is not containable. Snow is sending me a message - specifically and particularly related to Peeta. I don't know what he means, yet - I'm too jittery to read it. But it doesn't matter. All my fear and dread - my words translating directly to the bruises on Peeta's face - come back to literally shake me.

I try to pull myself together. I have a bargain to fulfill. I ask Cressida what she wants with me, where she wants me to stand, what she wants me to say. They've placed me in front of the ruins of the Justice Building - this is a bit of a joke, since this is where Capitol reporters "stood" in their fake coverage of District 13 over the years. And I stare out - the lights come up to illuminate me. The blinking light of the cameras.

And I can't think of anything to say.

"You OK?" Cressida asks. She comes up to me and blots my sweaty face lightly with a cloth. When I nod, she says, "How about we do the old Q-and-A thing?"

"Yeah, that would help, I think," I say, barely cognizant of her words. I cross my arms, trying to hold myself together. I look up toward the lights again, blinking, and I see Finnick, standing just behind Mesalla. He gives me a thumbs-up.

"So, Katniss. You've survived the Capitol bombing of Thirteen. How did it compare with what you experienced on the ground in Eight?"

Cressida always starts with easy questions, I think gratefully. Comparisons are easy. "We were so far underground this time," I say, and am startled to hear the shake in my voice, "there was no real danger. Thirteen is alive and well, and so am-." My voice quits suddenly on the lie.

"Try it again," Cressida encourages me. "That's a good one. 'Thirteen is alive and well and so am I.'"

"Thirteen's alive and so -." I stop, hearing the flub. I take a deep breath and, in so doing, I get a good whiff of the absent roses.

"Just this one line, Katniss. Thirteen's alive and well and so am I."

I nod, though now my nerves are screaming and everything real is starting to take on a nightmarish quality. I'm reminded, sharply, of being stung by tracker jackers in the arena, the way the woods bled, butterflies exploded and orange bubbles lined dimples in the earth. All senses tilted, and nothing to be trusted. I try to shake myself out of it. I swallow, screw myself up to just say the line. I open my mouth -.

\- And I start to cry. This is not possible. It is no longer possible for me to be the Mockingjay. I'm not the Mockingjay. I'm a scared girl whose good friend - a friend she maybe loves more than a little bit - is being tortured every time she opens her mouth. Just this one time - just this one time - now that I've realized the enormity of my feelings for him at the very moment that he possibly sacrificed himself to save me - I can't continue to play this game. Maybe later - after sleep, after I can no longer smell the roses in the air, after I pull myself together - maybe later I can do this.

But I don't think so, somehow. I think I'm done, finally completely broken.

"Cut," says Cressida.

"What's wrong with her?" asks Plutarch.

I look around for him. I'm still standing here, vulnerable and alone, in the sights of the cameras and the lights. My friends and allies, staring at me.

"She's figured out how Snow's using Peeta," says Finnick.

Regret sighs among them. They all, of course, realized this already - even Gale - and I, as usual, am the last to figure it all out. Even … I see Gale take a tentative step toward me, and I'm vaguely grateful for the gesture - but I make a move toward Haymitch. He comes over and puts his arms around me and I know the comfort from him is genuine, because he loves Peeta, too. I need hold nothing back with him.

"It's OK. It'll be OK, sweetheart," he says, leading me over to some broken piece of pillar and setting me down. Then he sits next to me and lets me sob in his arms.

"I can't - do this - anymore."

"I know."

"All I can think is - what he's going to do to Peeta - because I'm the Mockingjay!"

"I know."

"Did you see?" Now I'm really starting to panic. I can feel it in the tightness of my chest. The things I tried not to think about during the bombing, because they are just so terrifying, come screaming to the surface. "How weird he acted? What are they - doing to him?" I start to hyperventilate and I look up at him, trying to make him tell me that my fears are unfounded. "It's my fault!" I cry out, and I start actually screaming. I struggle a little when Plutarch approaches, but Haymitch's grip on me tightens and the needle is in my arm before I know it.


	9. Alive and Well, pt 2

Alive and Well, pt. 2

* * *

At some point during my dark wanderings, I stop to consider the unnaturally unlit sky and think to myself - _this must be a dream_. It's a long and dull one, but I take great comfort in the thought. If this is a dream, I might wake up and find out that so much of what I think is real never actually happened. Maybe I'll wake up and it is the morning after the Reaping and Prim's name wasn't actually called. I've had strange dreams about the baker's son - the boy who tossed me a burned loaf of bread when I was starving - and perhaps when I wake, I will find some of it to be true, but hopefully not all of it. I don't know what to do about these things … yes, I do. When I wake up, I will do one thing to make things square between us. I will give him the thanks that I have owed him for years. Then I will finally have peace, in that quarter. That, I think, must be the moral of the dream.

But where to go? I can't see - and everything looks dark, and also empty. What a strange place to go to in a dream. And a strangely long dream. Usually, once I identify that I'm dreaming, it is because I am starting to wake up and the dream is about to end. But I'm still waiting - for something, some sense of direction, some place to go.

When I do finally wake up, I'm in the hospital again - where else? And though it seems like I slept for a very long time, I have a slow, stupid, drugged feeling. When I look around, trying to get some sense of the time, I see Haymitch sitting next to me. He looks as if he's been drinking - his eyes are red and there are dark circles underneath them. Why would he have been crying? I wonder, then all the things I know to be real come back to me, and I start to shake. Peeta. Peeta is not a short walk away in a town that is still alive. If he's alive, he's far, far away from me and we are both infinitely far away from 'home.'

Haymitch reaches out to me and gently squeezes my shoulder. "It's all right. We're going to try to get Peeta out."

Haymitch's words are gibberish. "What?"

"Plutarch is sending a rescue team. He has people on the inside. He thinks we can get Peeta back alive."

My head starts ringing as if I've been struck. But - but …. Why? "Why didn't we before?" I say.

"Because it's costly," he replies. "But everyone agrees this is the thing to do. Whatever it takes to keep you going. We can't lose the Mockingjay now. And you can't perform unless you know that Snow can't take it out on Peeta." He holds a cup out to me, abruptly, as if to hold off the comments and questions he must know are at the top of my mind. "Here, drink something."

There are questions - and comments. But I drink the water and I know that - because Haymitch has framed this as such a dangerous undertaking - I can not voice them. But I think them. I wonder - how long has this option been on the table? Everything they have done with me since I got here was to carefully control me, to squeeze out this performance from me. In District 8, among the people in the hospital, I felt empowered, important. But all those people died. And everywhere else, I have been completely at the whim of District 13. And so many things have been kept from me.

"What do you mean, costly?" I ask Haymitch.

"Covers will be blown. People may die." At my expression, he hastily adds, "But keep in mind that they're dying every day. And it's not just Peeta - we're getting Annie out for Finnick, too."

"Where is he?"

Haymitch gestures to the other side of the ward. "Behind that screen, sleeping his sedative off. He lost it right after we knocked you out."

I can't help smiling at this - it makes me feel personally less week. And the visual of two screaming Victors among the wreckage of the camera shoot is darkly amusing.

"Yeah, it was a really excellent shoot," says Haymitch wryly. "You two cracked up and Boggs left to arrange the mission to get Peeta. We're officially in reruns."

"Well, if Boggs is leading it, that's a plus."

"Oh, he's on top of it. It was volunteer only but he pretended not to notice me waving my hand in the air. See? He's already demonstrated good judgment."

Haymitch chuckles, and I suddenly realize that his humor is a mask. Perhaps it is that I have become so used to being handled, that I can now more easily recognize the signs. "So, who else volunteered?"

"I think there were seven altogether," he says evasively, "and I'm not really great at names …."

"Who else, Haymitch?" I ask him forcefully - with the sense that I'm once again, as is so often the case now, asking for comfort and not answers.

"You know who else, Katniss," he says, in his normal tone. "You know who stepped up first."

I nod vaguely, but dread rushes through me. Gale.

Of course. I know Gale pretty well, or I did up to the point that he started bringing up running off together and having kids. But one thing that has remained the same - even through the jealousy that has clouded our recent relationship - is that he would jump into action for any cause he thought would hurt the Capitol. And some innate sense of fairness - that Peeta does not deserve what is happening to him and that I do not deserve to be hurt by it - would ultimately win out, I think, over his pragmatism. From a military standpoint, Peeta is a hinderance to my performance as the Mockingjay - and one life weighed against the valuable lives that might be lost in a rescue attempt. But I think Gale is capable of some empathy, at least.

Lives that might be lost. That now includes Gale, as well as Peeta. Damn it, I think, with mounting clarity and the horror that comes with it, a double loss in one blow would be the end for me. Gale … why did he have to volunteer? He can't be indispensable to the mission. There are other things he could do - develop weapons with Beetee, or something.

For a moment, I imagine the dark world of my dream. That is what would be left if both of them were gone. These boys who are as dear to me as my family. The universe where both of them are dead, laid out side by side, is incomprehensible. I would do _anything_ … I would take either of their places - in a heartbeat.

"Do you want them to put you back on the sedative?" Haymitch asks me.

I stare at him. This is his way. And I'm beginning to understand it. I don't know when it started for him. I saw the tape of the sixteen-year-old Seam boy who went into the arena twenty-five years ago; sarcastic and sullen, yes, as Haymitch still is. But bright-eyed and proactive, as well. That boy's eyes did not make it to Haymitch's middle age. Neither did whatever he had for a family, friends, lovers. Until Peeta and I thrust ourselves on him, he was alone. And drunk. I wonder what Snow did to break him.

"I want to go to the Capitol," I say. "To be part of the rescue mission."

"They're gone."

I struggle with the hospital sheets. "How long ago did they leave? I could catch up. I could -." I choke on my frustration. What exactly could I do?

Haymitch shakes his head. "It'll never happen. You're too valuable and too vulnerable. There was some talk about sending you to another district to divert the Capitol's attention while the rescue takes place. But no one felt you could handle it."

"Please, Haymitch! I have to do something. I can't just sit here waiting to hear if they died. There must be something I can do!"

Haymitch leaves with promises to talk to Plutarch about my request, and I get up and stagger across the ward to Finnick's bed. He's lying on his stomach, clutching his pillow - sleeping, or at least heavily drugged. After a pause, I gently shake him awake, then tell him what is going on.

His face clears mysteriously, his agitation relaxing. "Don't you see, Katniss?" he says. "This will decide things. One way or the other. By the end of the day, they'll either be dead or with us. It's more than we could hope for!"

I try to take that in the spirit he intended, but I find it hard to appreciate the point. On the other hand, maybe he's right. Maybe ….

.

.

"Katniss, Katniss." Haymitch snaps his fingers, frowning at me, and I drift slowly out of my haze. I'm standing, again, in the lights, with the cameras pointing at me.

"Sorry," I say. "Sorry!" I shake my head - try to shake myself out of it. Out of everything. This is important. Probably, at least for myself, one of the most important things I've ever done on camera. It's just so hard to think right now … "Cressida," I say softly, as she passes by me, checking out the arrangements.

"What?"

"When we start … ask me about Peeta."

She smiles.

I glance over at Haymitch, who is now drifting off towards Finnick. Finnick, who looks blank-faced, strangely serene. I guess that he still believes it - that either Annie's rescue or death will free him, equally. That must be the cost of living all these years with this burden. But I've not had the luxury. Barely any time to live with or without … Peeta. Yes. Peeta.

I breathe - in and out. As the filming starts, Cressida heeds my directions. Her stage voice startles me. "Tell us about when you first met Peeta."

I smile at this, the perfect cue. Panem knows Peeta's side of this story - the morning of the first day of school, with his father pointing me out. And they got oblique references to mine - but I never told the story, and the only time I ever referred to it in front of the cameras, it was just a mention of the bread, probably incomprehensible to even most people in District 12.

Finally, I think, I am doing what Haymitch asked me to do when he first prepped me to interview with Caesar Flickerman. Opening up - about my life. Finally I am doing what Peeta did when he walked on that stage and laid himself bare - all to save me. I didn't ever appreciate it - not fully. And there were consequences. Maybe if he had made the confession earlier - warned me he was about to use his own emotions as a game strategy - it might have been easier for me to handle. In the arena and out of it. But of course it should never have really mattered. He meant to die and he had had no idea his strategy - which made us both rootable, fixed together in the audience's mind - would somehow save us both. Maybe now I can finally pay him back in kind.

I just try to remember to keep breathing. I might see him - soon. Or he might die, and my oldest friend with him. I have to pull myself together and just do this thing.

"When I first met Peeta," I say, "I was eleven years old and I was nearly dead. What nobody really knows about Peeta is that … the first time we went into the arena is not the first time Peeta sacrificed himself for me." So, I look right at Cressida, as if testifying at a hearing, and tell her about my father's death and the starvation that followed, and that horrible rainy day when I tried to sell clothes but then ended up going through the garbage cans behind the merchants' shops. "Peeta's mother chased me off - as most people would have, to be honest," I say. "Peeta was - different. I didn't get very far - just as far as the apple tree behind the bakery when I collapsed, unable to move - unwilling to go home to my sister with no food. Then, I heard his mother scream - and hit him. And when he came back outside, he was holding two loaves of fresh bread, perfect except that he had burned just a bit of the end of them." I swallow. "I never asked him if he burned it on purpose. I really always kind of knew - especially after we got to know each other better. But it saved me that day, me and my family. And once I was clear-headed I realized, what I had to do, to survive. My father had given me all the tools I needed, it just - it took Peeta's gesture to - remind me. I - I never properly thanked him for that. I never had - we had never even spoken. The first time I ever talked to Peeta was on the train to the Games."

I pause. I'm suddenly flooded with things to say - genuine things that nobody saw on camera, but that they would like to hear - how kind, how selfless, how gentle he is. I'm not sure where to start and before I can, Cressida says, "But he was already in love with you."

I look down. "I guess so," I say, smiling a little.

"How are you doing with the separation?"

A pang clenches my gut for a moment. That's how I'm doing. But I swallow my pain and carry on. "Not well. I know at any moment Snow could kill him. Especially since he warned Thirteen about the bombing. It's a terrible thing to live with. But because of what they're putting him through, I don't have any reservations anymore. About doing whatever it takes to destroy the Capitol. I'm finally free." I look up at the sky through the trees and mouth some pat conclusion to the propo - a variation on the usual fist shaking toward the Capitol. Then I rise and quietly join my audience. They offer sincere but muted praise. I know it was nothing earth-shattering. But, in a way, I touched something sacred, the foundational myth of my "love story" and I hope the truth of it resonates with people and that the good it may do outweighs the slight guilt I feel for sharing it.

When I regain awareness of the surroundings, I notice that Haymitch and Plutarch are arguing in low tones, but animatedly - Finnick standing placidly nearby, still with that eerie, blank look on his face. But after a while, he puts a hand on Haymitch's arm and shakes his head with a soft smile.

Finnick replaces me in front of the cameras and Haymitch wanders back over to me as they start to film him. At first, all my concentration is on the rescue mission, wondering where they are, what they are doing, when they are expected back. But when Finnick starts speaking, I am captivated by his extraordinary tale. It is far more gripping than mine - and guaranteed to keep the eyeballs of the Capitol glued to their televisions, and perhaps their hands off the controls, letting the feed completely in. Finnick tells the story of what really happens to the Victors after the Games. It reminds me of a conversation Peeta and I had almost flippantly right before the Quell. About what would have happened to us if only one of us had won. Had we not had the star-crossed lover narrative to follow, would we have joined the "freak show"?

Now, I know.

As Finnick explains it, surviving the arena is almost as perilous as the arena itself. He was fourteen when he won his games, and the Capitol was already salivating over him. They left him alone for the first two years, but once he turned sixteen, his summers in the Capitol were spent indulging the perverse fantasies of the rich and favored. That was a common fate of the Victors, especially the attractive ones. To refuse was to risk serious consequences - injury or death of the loved ones. And that is why Finnick went through more lovers every year than anyone could count - not because he desired their money … or their gifts … or their company. He did it because he was forced. But he made the best of it, as I understand now. From these grasping, desperate couplings he gathered years of secrets. Maybe some of them were good for the Rebellion. But others were valuable in and of themselves. And now, at last, he has use for them. For the girl he has been protecting all these years by the debasing of his body.

Finnick tells of high-level officials, celebrities, members of old families - their strange sexual appetites, their feuds and vendettas, and their tenuous alliances. His testimony goes from embarrassing to damning, as he relates the crimes - from embezzlement to kidnapping and even murder. He goes up and up the chain … all the way up to President Snow, whose enemies have been dropping dead for years. Poison, Finnick says, and the word echoes in my brain. How perfect a weapon for the snake that he is. Poisonings disguised as sudden heart attacks or wasting diseases. Snow himself is said to partake of the poisoned food and drink he serves to his victims, to allay suspicion - though to do so has meant taking antidotes that have left his lips bloated, his mouth covered in sores.

To think I taunted his games with his own weapon. When he reached out to me, as if trying to win me to his side - in his typically terrifying way - did he recognize something of himself in me? Someone ruthless, calculating, quick to see the way around the rules? Someone to be understood, maybe, before he killed me - to try to figure out how a person like me could rise up out of almost nothing. In the meantime, he would torture me. He couldn't publicly sell me like Finnick. Peeta's strategy saved me from that. So he used the strategy itself against me - knowing that forcing me to keep up that ghastly pretense of happiness was a form of prostitution. To use one in one's own humiliation - this is what he does. What he could not understand … was Peeta. And nor did I. To Snow - he was just another scared tribute from the outer districts. Better fed, perhaps, than the ones 12 normally sends in - but still helpless. In a culture that worships the Catoes and Brutuses - the people who kill first, sort out regrets later - Peeta is definitely a bit of an anomaly.

I need him, I think suddenly. I need him here with me. Not just for myself - not just so that I can touch him and he can touch me. I need him next to me on the stage. He is my partner. Soft as life, warm and steady … his bright smile and the sadness in his eyes. Pure. I start to shake suddenly and worry about what the Capitol has been doing to him ….

I glance at Haymitch, then my eyes widen in wonder. If Finnick - and so many others - were made to pay the price for winning the Games, was he …? When he was young, he was handsome enough. I don't know if I want to ask this, but … "Haymitch - is that what happened - to you?"

I seem to hold my breath for a year waiting in dread for his response. But he shakes his head. "No. My mother and my younger brother. My girl. They were all dead two weeks after I was crowned victor. Because of that stunt I pulled with the force field. Snow had no one to use against me."

My heart hurts. "I'm surprised he didn't just kill you."

"No, I was to be the example. The person to hold up to the Finnicks and Johannas and Cashmeres. Of what could happen to a victor who caused problems." He stops, as if on a particularly painful memory. "But he had no more leverage to use against me."

"Until Peeta and I came along," I say softly. I'm inviting - almost hoping for - a scowl, a sarcastic comment. But I get nothing from him, and am left to think, anxiously and angrily, about Haymitch's long, lonely, drunken life. A half of his life - gone to waste. Sometimes it's hard to remember to feel lucky to be alive.

Sometimes. Now I have to go back to thinking obsessively about the state of the mission, my looming fear that everything is going to go wrong - doesn't it, mostly? - and that I'll certainly never see Peeta again, and probably never Gale. And if I do see Gale again … there are things he needs to know that will make him very unhappy. It's been staring me in the face since I was first fished out of the arena, and I'm running out of time to deal with it.

Finnick and I are shut out of Command - frustratingly enough. I suppose they don't want us around if something goes wrong, but - what are we supposed to do? We end up going down to Special Weaponry, where Beetee is just readying the video we made to break into the airwaves as the designated hour for the operation - 1500 - arrives. At last. It feels like this day has gone on forever. While Beetee and his team work, Finnick and I tie knots, try to eat a late lunch, then go to the interior shooting range and blow up targets. Finnick, I notice, no longer seems calmly prepared to face whatever outcome today brings. I suspect it is because this is the longest he's been off drugs in weeks.

Heart pounding, I go with him back to Beetee's set up and we now watch him work feverishly to push the video - the end of my interview and most of Finnick's - through the Capitol airwave security systems. He seems to be more successful than usual, and I wonder if it is that his skill is improving or Finnick's story was too salacious to override. Maybe a mix of both.

This goes on for an hour and all I can imagine is some shadowy cell somewhere, where Peeta sits slumped in despair. Of the armed guards and the small band of District 13 rebels - trained, sure, but with very little combat experience. Gale among them. Then, abruptly, it is over. Beetee explains the plan to us - but it is incomprehensible to me in my current state. Something about a dummy explosion to distract the Peacekeepers, knock-out gas, some key cards acquired by a spy on the inside. "You find the plan hard to follow?"

I nod.

"Good! Then our enemies hopefully will, too."

"Like your electricity trap in the arena?"

"Exactly, and see how well that worked out?"

I don't answer him, because I find it hard to agree.

Command refuses our entry again, so we huddle in Special Defense, ending up in the hummingbird room, where we can keep an eye on Beetee in case he is summoned with news. What do we do during the dark hours? Make knots, make knots, make knots. When I try to walk around, I only feel myself start to collapse. When we are offered dinner, we laugh it off. I try not to think about either Peeta or Gale, but can't find a way to dislodge them. Either of them.

"Did you know you loved Annie right away?" I ask Finnick at some point.

"No," he smiles. "No. She - crept up on me."

I nod to myself. That sounds about right, actually.

It's a little after midnight when Haymitch suddenly appears, and all my insides collapse in on me. I can't really read the expression on his face as he says, "They're back. We're wanted in the hospital."

"Are …"

"That's all I know. Come on."

I start after him, prepared to leap past him, but I'm pulled back by my sense that Finnick, my companion all these hours, is not moving. My chest squeezes. I know how he must feel, and at the same time I can't even imagine how he must feel. I take his hand and help him up, then pull him behind me, even though it takes longer that it would if I were on my own. Whatever news waits us … whoever waits for us … will be there whether it takes us five minutes or an hour.

The main ward is a hive of frantic activity once we finally do get there. Several gurneys are being wheeled toward individual patient rooms. One bumps right into me and I look at it eagerly … but it's a pale, emaciated girl, her head shaved and covered with sores, scars and bruises. Oh - God. It's … Johanna. Who did know rebel secrets, unlike Peeta. It looks like she's been paying for it, and no one in her life to mourn her and worry about her.

Soldiers seem to be everywhere, so it's with some difficulty that I finally catch a glimpse of Gale, and I breathe out a long sigh of relief. He's upright, though shirtless, in a patient room, getting some work done on his shoulder. I start to move toward him, but a medic rushes past me and his room is closed.

"Finnick!" I turn at the sound and am nearly knocked over by a person who comes running past me in a blur of long brown hair and flowing hospital gown. She attaches herself to Finnick as if he is a magnet. Suddenly they are kissing each other in a way that almost makes my public kisses with Peeta seem downright amateur. I watch Finnick encircle her and, between kisses, give endearments in a voice that is somehow equally between a sob and a laugh. And I feel - something I have never actually felt before. I want something like that. Something sure, solid, intimate and real like that. It's a disorienting thing. Romance, to this point, has been an inconvenience, at best; stressful, in general. And I -.

I look at Haymitch and he looks at me; suddenly Boggs is bearing down on us, and I look to him eagerly. "We got them all out," he says, and I think I collapse a little. "Except Enobaria. But since she's from Two, we doubt she's being held anyway. Peeta's at the end of the hall. The effects of the gas are just wearing off. You should be there when he wakes."

 _Peeta_. So, this is what it means to know. To be absolutely certain. To want nothing more than one thing, one person. To be released - from the burden of caring about the damage that might be done to my heart, the broken feelings of other people. Home. Gale. The war. Snow. In this moment they are ashy memories - someone else's problem. Some other time. Some other place. This moment is alive and bursting with color and heat and everything feels _good_. The recycled air tastes _good_. Life is _good_.

I look up at Haymitch and see him grinning at me and I feel that there must be the same smile on my face. Peeta. We actually survived it - all of it. "Come on, then," says Haymitch.

I find myself strangely walking in slow motion behind him, my thoughts whirling. I'd convinced myself so firmly that this reunion would never take place that now - that now - what will I say to him? If he's been knocked out ever since the rescue, he probably has no idea where he has been taken, to whom he has been brought. Should I scream his name, like Annie did and … rush into his arms? If that's physically possible. We'll kiss, for sure, and - I shiver in anticipation - we'll see how close it feels to that last time.

I follow Haymitch, my heart racing, down the hall to a room at the end of a dim corridor. As I do, my steps grow heavy. Here I am - with things I'm still figuring out, including some news that will surely be as sad for him as it is for me. At least in this time and place. Perhaps I shouldn't tell him, yet. Or at all?

So, I'm well behind Haymitch as he reaches Peeta's room, torn between anxiety and anticipation. As I approach the room I see that Peeta is sitting up in his bed - I can just see the side of his face, which registers bewilderment as a trio of doctors examine him. My breath quickens. He's so thin. So pale. His face, like Johanna's, is covered in sores and bruises. OK, but - OK, but it's him. It really is him.

I quicken my pace a little and I am just coming up behind Haymitch when he looks up and sees me. I part my lips, but no words come, not even his name. He looks wild, his expression intense - desperate? I think I saw this expression - a variant of it - during that night we ... I start to step forward, and he rises as well, his hands outstretched….

"Hey," I say.

Peeta freezes and it's in the pause that Haymitch and I realize that something is wrong. Haymitch catches it first and moves between us, just as Peeta lurches forward.

What happens next is hard to explain, impossible really. As he brushes Haymitch aside to get to me, I sense the problem, too. Peeta is attacking me. He's reaching for my throat, but is knocked off course by Haymitch and, as I fall to the floor, Peeta on top of me, Haymitch gives a shout and tries to pull him off. Their tussle is difficult; I can feel that - although he has lost weight, his strength is still there in his wiry arms. I'm stunned into near submission. I can't attack Peeta. But then - the glimpses I get of his face as they try to pull him off me - his mouth snarling, his eyes red - he doesn't look like Peeta - he doesn't feel like him.

Finally, I push him and he is simultaneously yanked free of me, and I hit the hard concrete floor abruptly, and black out.


	10. Not all of It, pt 1

A/N; Tiny, tiny, teaser mid-week chapter

* * *

Not All of It, pt.1

* * *

 _Not all of it._

The night is warm, thick with humidity - the air clicks with the sound of the pincers that mark the 11 o'clock hour. We sit on the ten o'clock beach, keeping watch together. We sit side-by-side, but our heads are turned in opposite directions. And then we hear Finnick's snores, from up the beach, and I sigh and lean against him.

He puts his knife down in the sand and turns to me, lifting up my chin and staring down at me in the moonlight. "I thought we'd never have a moment to ourselves again," he whispers.

"Peeta, I -."

But he presses his lips down on mine, and, as if we'd never stopped really, we are suddenly kissing with complete abandon. His tongue plunges hungrily into my mouth, and he flicks it against mine. My body tingles with desire, uncoiling and demanding immediate satiation of the kind only this boy can give. I release him and squirm on to his lap, straddling his hips with my legs, and I look down on him and search his eyes. He moans - I'm right up against his erection, pressing against it. His hands travel down my back, down to my ass, which he lightly presses in closer. It's hard - it's hard to remember that we are being watched. That there are cameras on us, now. Breathless, panting, beady-eyed people watching two sweaty teenagers do everything but rip their clothes off each other.

The frustrating thing is … it's almost enough, even between the cotton briefs we both wear, it's almost enough ... kissing him and kissing him and trying not to moan … OK, a soft little moan, against his mouth.

His lips leave my mouth and they are on my throat. I throw my head back to take his kisses there. My motion causes a shift - my crotch against his - and he stops, suddenly, his eyes widening. And I am actually so very close. "Katniss," he breathes against my neck. "Katniss, Katniss…."

He goes still, and I just wait there, on this intensely painful and intensely pleasureable precipice. But as I wait - enjoying it and hating it all at once - some new feeling spreads, like a fire, from the core of my body to the core of my soul, igniting my gut, my chest, my face, my fingers and my toes. What is this? I wonder. The intersection of lust and …?

"Hey," he says suddenly - his voice is warm and sweet, and he is smiling at me. He reaches up and pushes a strand of hair out of my face.

I swallow. "Hey," I respond, my voice lumpy.

"I love you, Katniss. I know," he adds hastily, before I can even think about how I might respond, "I know - you know that; but -."

And then the lightning strikes. And the chimes signifying midnight. He shakes his head, ruefully. His face - beautiful in the moonlight - filled with a frustration as keen as mine. We will never finish this. I struggle against this, though - wild thoughts of escaping with him into the jungle, somewhere dark and out of the moonlight. OK, the cameras would be watching us, but …

Then Finnick gasps and struggles back awake, and I deflate back into reality. I push myself off of Peeta's lap and turn away from him.


	11. Not all of It, pt 2

Not All of It, pt 2

* * *

 _Not all of it._

I remember vividly the moment that I was responsible for putting the lights out in his face. I didn't really understand, until the moment it was too late to retrieve the words, just how much they would actually hurt him. _It was all a strategy._ As the realization dawned, the look of sweet joy - a boyish innocence, tinted with the promise of less childish joys - drained from his face and I never, never saw it again. The next time I saw him, there was a cool, neutral expression - and though I would see the smile in his eyes again, there would never again be that open-faced happiness. I didn't give him back his flowers, but clung to them as if my keeping them could somehow compensate for everything else I did not allow him to give me.

He forgave me for that day, and I forgave myself. It wasn't my burden to treat as real what had been sold to me as false. And he knew it. My concern for him - my need to preserve his life - was not faked - nor was my care for him, my partner, my ally, my pretend lover. But he had dared to hope for something more and he had misread me.

But it didn't make it any less painful for him to experience the let down. Or for me to see it. And the instant I did see it - I knew. Just how real for him it actually was. That - whether or not he exaggerated the crush on me he had claimed to have had since he was five - by the time the Game ended, his feelings for me, his love for me, was real - a wall and a bind between us, all at once. And ever since then, from that moment until this, this love was a given and this boy's actions were oh, so predictable - from propping me up during the Victory Tour, to standing up with me for Gale … to the final sacrifice, volunteering to go in with me to the arena. There are very few things that can be relied upon in this world, very few things that are not in some way false. Even Gale's loyalty to me has been called into question. This was one of the very few things.

When I come to again, after another long hike through an impenetrable darkness, that first wash of confused ignorance is such a blessing. It takes me a few moments to remember - and with memory comes a deep, hollow pain. Tears start to roll down my cheeks. I don't know how or why; I understand nothing in the universe anymore. Peeta tried to kill me. The words - they make no sense. They don't belong in the real world. He has always protected me. Always. If this is no longer true -.

I try to move and find that I am restrained to the bed. So I grunt and thrash around. This brings in medics, nurses, Haymitch, Prim and eventually Boggs and Beetee and Plutarch, as well. The dim lights are slowly brought up, and I'm tested for a concussion. All the time, I can feel Haymitch's stare at me, and every time I get a glimpse of him, I am reminded of the bleakness of my circumstances through its reflection on his face.

"What?" I finally croak. "What is happening? Where -?"

A quiet sigh passes around the group. Finally, Plutarch says, "If someone had consulted me, I would have warned them not to introduce Peeta to you until he was thoroughly checked over."

I curl my lip at him. "Warn? But he-."

"It was clear from the last broadcast that Peeta's mental state was deteriorating. Obviously, he'd been abused and we put his psychological state down to that. I admit even I am surprised by the scale of it….It seems that - and I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Katniss - it seems that Peeta has been brainwashed using a very specific technique called hijacking."

I keep my face perfectly blank and still. "Hijacking?"

"The Capitol only had him for five weeks," Haymitch says, running his hands through his hair.

"Yes, there's an additional component to this kind of brainwashing, one that would have sped it up, as it were. And make it difficult to reverse. Peeta has very high levels of tracker jacker venom in his blood."

I shake my head. "Tracker jacker … but …" I have a strange vision of Peeta strapped down in a room with the muttation hornets buzzing overhead.

Beetee pipes up suddenly. "An extracted poison - diluted with some chemicals and bonding agents. I don't know much about it. I heard that it was being used, but not the details. If you think about it - you were stung in the first arena, of course, so unlike the rest of us, you have firsthand knowledge of the effects of the venom."

"Yes …" And the horror of it comes back to me. The intense fear and sense of unreality. The hallucinations and the acute pain.

"I'm sure you remember how frightening it was," says Beetee, with his typical way of understating things. "Did you also suffer mental confusion in the aftermath? A sense of being unable to judge what was true and what was false? Most people who have been stung and lived to tell about it report something of the kind."

"Tracker jacker venom … wears off," I say, in a small voice.

I could slap the look of pity off of Plutarch's face. "The venom was used to enhance and accelerate the brainwashing. But - yes - Peeta is now being treated with anti-toxins and some other, more aggressive techniques."

Beetee taps his forehead. "In hijacking, recall is made more difficult because memories can be changed. Brought to the forefront of your mind, altered and saved again in the revised form. Imagine that I ask you to remember something - either with a verbal suggestion or - say - make you watch a tape of the event, and while that experience is refreshed, I give you a dose of tracker jacker venom. Not enough to induce a three-day blackout. Just enough to infuse the memory with fear and doubt. And that's what your brain puts in long-term storage."

Silence falls and I guess everyone's looking at me, as if waiting for me to realize the magnitude of it. But I get it. That look in his face. His pale eyes. We were too late. Peeta - actually - did not come back to me. The spirit that inhabited Peeta's body … what happened to it? If it is composed of memories that have been altered to be fearful to him, if it has been mutated in this specific way ….

It's Prim's eye I catch, and her mouth turns down. "Is that what they've done to Peeta? Taken his memories of Katniss and distorted them so they're scary?"

Beetee nods. "So scary that he'd see her as life-threatening. That he might try to kill her. Yes - that's our current theory."

I cover my face and in the dark hollow I make with my arms, I attempt not to hyperventilate. A feeling is growing in me, a seed of an idea, and it is dark and dreadful. It's _not_ possible. For someone to make Peeta forget he loves me … no one could do that. This is not just about me - about me selfishly having the thing that I want. It's about changing everything good and innocent about the boy - permanently. This act is so twisted and horrible that it is not conceivable. And there is no way Peeta would have allowed it to happen.

"But you can reverse it, right?" Prim asks.

Yes, yes. Anything that is done can be undone, right? But the image that comes to me is that of District 12, permanently undone.

"There's no data on that," says Plutarch. "If hijacking rehabilitation has even been attempted before, we have no access to those records."

Back in the Capitol, I think dully. Where we left him. And somewhere, in the echoes of his screams that must have filled his prison cell - somewhere in the whispers that cling to the Capitol air, when he tried to remind himself of me, to fight off the feelings they were inducing in him, to wonder where I was and how I came to be there - in these untouchable places, far away, is where Peeta is now.

"Well, you're going to try aren't you?" returns Prim, and I am surprised and somewhat strengthened by the firmness, the surety of her voice. She's a savvy girl - she must know that Plutarch Heavensbee isn't normally spoken to in this manner by 13-year old District girls. "You're not just going to lock him up in some padded room and leave him to suffer?"

I squeeze my eyes tight, make the darkness even darker. I should try to think in those terms - to think of Peeta, the present-day Peeta, who needs help. I should stop thinking about how this has affected me, how it has left me bereft ….

"Of course we'll try, Prim," says Beetee. "It's just - we don't know to what degree we'll succeed. If any. My guess is that fearful events are the hardest to root out. They're the ones we naturally remember the best, after all."

Well. Beetee is not one to spare the truth for anyone's feelings, after all. But that's one of the reasons I trust him.

Plutarch adds: "And apart from his memories of Katniss, we don't yet know what else has been tampered with. We're putting together a team of mental health and military professionals to come up with a counterattack. I, personally, feel optimistic that he'll make a full recovery."

"Do you?" asks Prim in a voice that clearly indicates that she can see through Plutarch's bureaucratic-speak. "And what do you think, Haymitch?"

I open my arms up wide enough so I can look at Haymitch, and I immediately wish I hadn't. His face is not that of a mentor who has seen his tribute escape with his life. Nor of the team member who has fulfilled his drunken pact. Nor of the lonely man who genuinely loves this boy for almost every reason that I do - because he is kind and funny, optimistic and strong, and genuinely cares about _people_ \- not movements or power or ideas.

Haymitch's face is the parent's who has learned his only son has not much longer to live. "I think Peeta might get somewhat better. But … I don't think he'll ever be the same."

I close myself back inside the safety of my own arms. Plutarch has now lost patience with us and reminds us that at least we got Peeta back alive, and where there's life … back in the Capitol, Peeta's rescue was followed by the execution of his stylist, Portia, and his prep team, live on television. And Effie Trinket is missing. Now, at the very least, Snow has absolutely no one to hold over our heads, over my head, and ….

At this point, my efforts to keep myself from hyperventilating fail utterly and my sobs start coming out of my throat in low, harsh gasps that eventually dissolve into an awful keening sound.

.

.

After a sedated sleep and a check for concussion, I'm released and I wander around the main ward again. I ponder looking in on Johanna, but my reasons right now would be more selfish than not, so I leave her to her rest. I end up visiting Gale, who is recovering from his gunshot wound. He starts fretting about his confinement until I smile in spite of myself, and sit down on the edge of his bed.

"You should welcome the rest, Soldier Hawthorne," I say in a light voice.

His room is dim - we're looking at each other in semi-darkness. I remind myself that it could have been much worse - Gale could have died retrieving Peeta for me, and that would have been horrible, simply awful. Even had Peeta come back perfectly normal. That would have lain on me forever.

"Thank you," I end up saying, as gently as possible. I know it's not necessarily what he wants to hear from me. But I have to give it to him. I am, in fact, more grateful than I can ever really say.

He grunts. "We should have guessed," he says cryptically.

"Guessed what?"

"Boggs thought it was a little too easy. There was some resistance at the cell, but none when we left the Capitol. Snow must have been prepping … him … to be delivered to you, anyway."

I sway at this thought. It rings true to the way that Snow works. Of course - of course. To keep him from me long enough to drive me out of my mind, then to return him to me, violated, corrupted and dangerous. Tears drop down my cheeks, but I keep the emotion out of my voice. "No doubt," I say, shortly. "But I'm still grateful to you. You didn't have to volunteer. You shouldn't have. You're far too important - to the cause."

He flashes me a brief but cheerless smile. "You come before the cause. And … he's 12, whatever else. Or …"

Right," I say, abruptly.

"I mean it," says Gale.

I discreetly wipe my nose, which is starting to run. "What are you so anxious to get up for, anyway?" I ask him. "What's next?"

He stares at me, keenly. "You tell me."

I shake my head. "How would I know? I'm the one who never gets told anything around here."

He sighs, recognizing that this still lies between us, unresolved, and runs his hand through his hair. "Well … I suppose that, no matter how it ended up, 13 will want to show Panem the results of a successful incursion into the Capitol. Maybe they'll have to highlight Annie and Finnick at first, but eventually …." He pauses and waits for my expression to change - but I'm very, very, very neutral. "Beetee and I are working on some weapons systems. That's what I'll be getting back to. They're going to focus on taking District 2, now."

I nod. Then I take his hand and pat it. "I'll look in on you tomorrow, if you're still here," I say. I glance up at his face and he doesn't hide it - his sadness and pain is unconcealed. It doesn't affect me like it once would have. I feel … cold. And I can feel the coldness growing in me, that dark seed taking root. The game. Your move, Miss Everdeen. Or do you concede the loss?

I make my way to my family's quarters. I push Buttercup off my bed and watch him pace the room in disgust. He's confined here, now, as we no longer have an open window to hop in and out of. He has a cat pan, and a few moments of freedom when Prim is available to take him down to the common room. I know how he feels. Giving up freedom for safety - it's an awful lot to ask.

I nap while waiting for my mother and sister to return from their shifts in the hospital. Or try to. My mind, awake or asleep, is busy with the thoughts that haunt me. What's next? I wonder how Peeta is doing - what he is doing right now. What will be left when the venom has been removed? Maybe rage will go down, but that will leave only fear. And it's me he's afraid of. So, though I long to see him - to just get a glimpse - I know that it will help no one, not him and not me.

What's next? How will they prop him up - paint him, sedate him - to make him acceptable for their propos? And what to do with me? Now that Peeta and I are not trading barbs across the continent. Now that 2 is the only district left to fall. Do I concede the loss?

Not yet, I think. Not yet. My teeth grit as I imagine it - visualize it. My arrow is tight right against Snow's temple. Maybe it's even one of my special arrows. Fire, right through his brain. My fingers tremble as I can feel the sensation - the recoil as the arrow snaps into his skull and ignites, killing both of us. Me - covered in his blood and consumed by fire. That's the end of this.

Prim finds me curled up into a ball on my bed, contemplating my most recent impossible situation. I don't have to ask if she's seen Peeta today, because she straight up tells me she sat in on a session with his treatment team, as they met in front of a mirrored window that looks in on his room. But she isn't allowed in his room. Only strangers are allowed to interact with him and right now they are just talking to him - when he is awake between sedation - trying to get him to tell them exactly what happened to him in the Capitol. More than this, Prim won't say.

Gale stays in the hospital for a couple of more days - an infection sets in and he has to be treated with antibiotics. I visit him once and just listen to him talk to me about how big the Capitol looked in the darkness, with all its lights on - bigger than he imagined. He's a bit fevered. Then I wander outside for "hunting" but don't do anything but find a tree to climb and sit in a tall branch, letting the orange leaves fall on my face. There in the trees, with the year starting to settle into sleep and the smell of decay all around me, I come to a decision.

That afternoon, twisting my blanket in my hands and ignoring Buttercup's attacking of my writhing blanket, I run over my plan in my head. Again, it is Prim who finds me in bed, and looks down on me with pity. She unclutches my fingers, pulls the blanket up to my chin, and strokes my hair. This of course turns Buttercup mad with jealousy, and he jumps up on my pillow, backing up against my face as if hoping she'll mistake him for my hair and touch him, too. Finally, laughing, she picks him up and wraps him in her arms - in a way he would never accept from anyone else - but she looks earnestly down at me. "Katniss," she says, "I know this whole thing with Peeta is terrible for you. But remember, Snow worked on him for weeks, and we've only had him for a few days. There's a chance that the old Peeta, the one who loves you, is still inside. Trying to get back to you. Don't give up on him."

She almost has me convinced. Could he - is he - could he come back?

She goes back to the hospital, leaving Buttercup in my charge - or vice versa - and I try to sleep. But I'm too restless for sleep and, like Buttercup, feel too confined. Eventually, I get up and make my way down to Special Defense. I avoid meeting the eyes of everyone I pass - I don't know what they've heard, but they surely all know about the rescue attempt and that it was a successful one (I avoided all assemblies over the last couple of days, so I don't really know what's been said).

In Special Defense I find, not only Beetee, but Gale, who apparently was released from the hospital today and of course made a beeline to his work. They don't notice me until I am right on top of them, practically. Their heads are bent over a drawing of some kind, and Beetee has some kind of ruler with angles, and he's taking measurements. I glance at the drawing, then up at similar ones hanging up on the walls, and even displayed on the computer screens. So this is what Gale has been doing, while I've been moping around. I'm prepared to be impressed, but something is wiggling around in my mind. Some problem…. These are Gale's twitch-up snares, blown up large - the traps he uses to so delicately capture the most elusive prey.

"What are these?" I ask, confused.

"Ah, Katniss! You've found us out," says Beetee, smiling.

"What? Is this a secret?" I ask. Maybe no one is supposed to know that "weapons development" means studying Gale's rabbit traps.

"Not really. But I've felt a little guilty about it. Stealing Gale away from you so much."

I glance over at Gale and see that he is looking at me - but he averts his eyes, frowning down at his sketches. It's not like there's been much between us to interrupt, in all fairness. I've gone from disoriented to angry, dressed up, shot at, and attacked by my lover. And I've been frustrated with him, more often than not. "I hope you've been putting his time to good use."

"Come and see," says Beetee.

What I see does not improve my mood. Yes, this is weapons development, of a sort. The development of new uses for weapons. This is marrying Beetee's expertise at design with Gale's instinct for ensnaring the unpredictable. The weapons in question are primarily bombs. Where Gale comes in is in devising the lures for the prey. Laying traps around a food or water supply. Herding larger numbers of prey toward the trap, using fear and trickery. Endangering the young in order to draw out the parent. How well I remember these techniques, when they were used to feed us. Now, they fill me with unease. And I remember something that I haven't stopped to think about in a long time - how among the things Gale said to me when I left for the arena was that there was not much difference - between killing people and killing animals. Spoken, I thought later, out of the ignorance of someone not sent to the place where they force you to kill. But perhaps I underestimated this side of his character.

It's not just the fighting, or the not fighting. It's the - coolness to the consequences. The emotional reserve. The absence of uncertainty.

Beetee runs an animation on the computer where I can see one of their plans put in motion. A bomb drops on a busy city street. People rush in to assist the wounded. And then a second explosion happens. I wonder if this is planned for actual use - or if it has already actually been used. Surely, this is only theoretical.

"That seems to be crossing a line," I say, when their little program finishes. "So - anything goes?"

Beetee looks abashed, but Gale gives me a cold look, his eyes resentful.

"I guess there isn't a rule book for what might be unacceptable to do to another human being," I press on.

"Sure there is," Gale replies. "Beetee and I have just been following the same rule book President Snow used when he hijacked Peeta."

Well. Maybe we're even now - I threw Peeta in his face, once, and now he has returned the favor. Peeta … who has been so cruelly warped and twisted. And now, a pawn in Gale's argument. But how can I argue? All I want now - the last thing that I want - is to destroy Snow in as painful and humiliating a fashion as I can contrive. Hatred - loathing for everyone even remotely involved in what happened to Peeta - overtakes me. And yet - and yet - I know that it is the last thing Peeta would want me to do, even on his behalf.

Or would have. Of course, that Peeta is long gone.

I shake my head and leave the room before I say things I will regret. We've got to end this war, as soon as possible. For Gale's soul, apparently, among all the other reasons. I just have to figure out a way to get myself to the Capitol with my weapons.

The person I'm thinking of materializes in front of me almost as soon as I think it. It's Haymitch, walking through the corridors with a purpose. "Come with me," he says. "We need you in the hospital."

"What for?" I ask, trying to sound reluctant, but my heart starts to beat faster in anticipation, despite myself.

"They're going to try something on Peeta. Send in the most innocuous person from Twelve they can come up with. Find someone Peeta might share childhood memories with, but nothing too close to you. They're screening people now."

I follow Haymitch, wondering what on earth he wants from me, anyway. I'd be of little use in this process, because, despite the small size of both our district and the student body at school, Peeta and I really never did cross paths. I know nothing - literally nothing - about who his friends were at school, what relatives he had besides those in his immediate family. I can't even remember the names of his dead brothers. Still, I'm curious. I know very few people from Town even survived the bombing, and I wonder how many they could have possibly found to screen.

And I'm hoping - I'll admit it - to catch a glimpse of him. Just a glimpse. I'm sure that, after three days, he must at least look a little better - a little less thin, a little less bruised. I'd like a better picture to take with me to the Capitol.

Peeta has been placed in a room that has a smaller room attached to it. This room features a bank of monitors - I can see the readings of his vital statistics - and a darkened glass window that looks directly into his room. I presume it's a one-way glass, but I still give a start when I look through it and see his eyes looking almost straight at me. They are clearer - slightly - than when I saw them last. But he still just doesn't look quite like himself. I can't describe it - unless - well, even under the most trying circumstances, there was always a glimmer in his eyes, the soft light that illuminated all of his face. That has been completely stripped from his expression. And there's a heavy, maybe drugged, weariness that has taken its place.

Plutarch is sitting at one end of the room with a blonde girl who I don't recognize at first, until she turns around on our approach and gives me one of her patented grins. Delly Cartwright - who smiled at everyone, even me, back in school. I never understood her - she was a Townie for sure, but no better off than anyone else from the merchant families, so I never understood what exactly she had to be happy about, all the time. But I do vaguely associate her with Peeta, and I'm not sure why.

"Katniss!" she says, her smile nearly breaking her face.

"Hey, Delly," I say. At one point, when I'd quizzed Prim on who from Town had survived the bombing - really wondering about the Mellarks, and if I should meet with them - I was told Delly and her younger brother had made it to 13, but not their parents. She's lost weight - not surprising given 13's strict diet regimen - and her bright blonde curls have been forced into a tight braid - but otherwise she looks very much as I remember her from school. "How are you doing?" I ask, trying to convey my sympathy at what I know are the enormous losses she must have suffered. Her parents, friends and who knows how many relatives.

Her eyes, in fact, fill with tears, although her smile doesn't really fade. "Oh, it's been a lot of changes, all at once. But everyone's really nice here in 13, don't you think?"

I try not to visibly twist my mouth in disagreement. The thing about Delly is - she genuinely just thinks the best of people. "They've made an effort to make us feel welcome," I answer, a trifle coolly. "Are you the one they've picked to see Peeta?

"I guess so. Poor Peeta. Poor you. I'll never understand the Capitol."

"Better not to, maybe,"

"Delly's known Peeta for a long time," says Plutarch.

"Oh yes! We played together from when were little. I used to tell people he was my brother."

"What do you think?" Haymitch asks me. "Anything that might trigger memories of you?"

Did I know Delly? Of course, everyone did. She was one of those people who was always doing things in school, who was always surrounded by people. Of course, had I not known better, I would have easily believed her if she told me Peeta was her brother. Just as with me and Gale, it's not just the common coloring, but something of her disposition that actually contributes to the resemblance.

"We were all in the same class," I say. "But we never overlapped much."

"Katniss was always so amazing. I never dreamed she would notice me. The way she could hunt and go in the Hob and everything. Everyone admired her so."

Haymitch is so startled he literally jumps. And I squint at Delly suspiciously. It wasn't me whose company was sought out, who sat at the popular table, who fended off the attentions of admirers. And the idea that everyone left me alone because I was so awe-inspiring … ridiculous. It was because I was unremittingly unfriendly and unpleasant to just about everyone around me. This is nearly as unsettling as when Peeta unexpectedly praised me to Haymitch, before our first arena. This is just another example, I guess, of how similar to him she is.

She must be his oldest friend. I think her family's shoe store was off the town center, just like the bakery, so they would have grown up in close proximity. And I never knew, never bothered to ask or find out. It didn't even occur to me to wonder why it was her name that was so quick on his lips that one night in the Capitol ….

"Wait," I say suddenly, looking at Haymitch. "In the Capitol - when I lied about recognizing the Avox girl. Peeta covered for me and said she looked like Delly."

Haymitch nods thoughtfully. "I remember. But I don't know. It wasn't true. Delly wasn't actually there. I don't think it can compete with years of childhood memories."

So, it is Delly who is sent into Peeta's room and I watch behind the glass. I stare at him, heartsick, and try to be pleased that he is calmer, clearly so much better than just a couple of days ago. Perhaps it will be like watching the Capitol interviews in reverse - perhaps each time I see him, he will be markedly improved. I'm sure that whatever they did to him will have some kind of lasting impact, but surely he can return to a livable state, one in which he is not confined to a hospital room, alone except for the voices in his head.

But this interview does not progress well. Delly has been instructed to steer clear of topics related to me, District 12 or his family - but what on earth is she supposed to do? Of course Peeta is going to wonder why he has been brought here, what happened to District 12, where his family is. Delly explains in halting terms and things take a turn for the worse. Peeta's agitation grows and with it, his accusations that Delly's information comes from me. And that I am not to be trusted. Because I am not just the enemy - I am a muttation, a creature Snow made to destroy everyone.

Delly inches out as Peeta turns red with his screams and I just stand there, my mouth gaping - looking at him, but not seeing him. Because he's not there to see.

A trifle belatedly, Haymitch and Plutarch together drag me out of the observation room and into the main ward. Haymitch is watching me closely, but I think I have no expression. I can't even feel my face. In this moment, I realize how much I was counting on Prim's reassurances that Peeta must still be in there, somewhere, because, despite myself, I feel a very deep disappointment. Well - this only makes my path clearer than ever before. Peeta is gone. The existence of this creature who bears his name - this mutated version of the boy from District 12, this muttation - only serves to highlight the fact that he is gone. I will avenge that boy. It may be meaningless to the thing behind the glass. But it's the last thing I have left to do.


	12. Weaponless

Weaponless

* * *

On a clear, cold morning, I'm expecting Gale and I do feel ready - I think, finally ready - to face him. It helps that this morning felt so like autumn mornings at home that, when I set out to watch for the flocks of migrating geese, I kept thinking that I heard his footsteps, soft as they are, right behind me.

But I've been hunting alone in District 2, and it's been fine. I let Gale go almost as thoroughly as I had to let Peeta go, and in the solitude of the clear, thin, pine-scented mountain air, I have finally found the clarity of mind that has been sorely missing since I shot an arrow into the force field of the arena - fulfilling the secret mission of the Rebellion while simultaneously failing miserably at my own. So, I've come to terms with the failure, with the loss. And in the meanwhile, I can fulfill my terms as the Mockingjay in this place - far away from the insane boy and the boy who is busy with his bombs.

Not that Peeta's in danger from 13 anymore. There's no punishment they could mete out worse than what was dealt him by the Capitol; at any rate, his last, desperate act as himself - the warning cry - has earned him at least a dozen pardons. Over the last two and a half weeks, I have been able to mourn him in isolation - just me and my memories of him, which I have separately unsealed, symbolically kissed good-bye, and let go into the ether. The boy who peered at me from behind his mother's apron. The boy I shoved into a vase. Kissed in a cave. Held on a train. Fucked in the Tribute Center. Every once in awhile I hear the echo of Finnick's soft voice: _you love him_. But as those words belong to a story that ended even before it began, I do not let myself repeat them. It is hard enough to mourn him, let alone to mourn something like that - some song of joy I might have had in my life. No, it is not for saving Peeta, now, that I work to complete my task - it is for the privilege of killing Snow.

When I check in with 13, Plutarch tries to give me optimistic updates regarding his treatment. Apparently, they have almost convinced him that I am not a mutt. Haymitch tempers the updates with realism that I find almost bracing. Almost, now that I have made my resolutions, it would be difficult to know what to do with good news, anyway. When I need to, I can remind myself that Haymitch's realism tends toward pessimism, and maybe he's keeping things from me, again. But in my heart ….

And as for Gale? He offered, of course, to come with me to District 2. That was another easy refusal for me, and this time I think he is not unhappy about it. His work with Beetee is ramping up as 13 gears for the eventual push toward the Capitol. In 2, he would have nothing to do but smile behind me as I shout encouragement to the rebels … the quarry folk in the outer villages of the District, who make up the heart of the rebellion here. It would be a waste of Gale's time, energy, intellect.

And for me, once again - maybe for the last time - I have needed to have space from him. This time has belonged to the mourning process. It has strengthened me to let go. Not entirely. Peeta deserves to be remembered for who he was, and I have brought with me the pearl that was my token of him when he was captured. I will take it with me to the Capitol, to help me find the strength to face my death. With luck, it may some day find it's way back to him. In fact, I plan to leave instructions to that end with the good-bye letters I will eventually write to my mother and sister.

I will say good-bye to Gale in person, but he just won't realize it. If I tell him any of my plans, he will be reckless. It rubs me the wrong way to have my final days with him be covered in deception. But while Peeta and I have been destroyed by the arena, he has every chance to live and to thrive in the new Panem. This is my resolution for Gale: to serve 13, then make a home somewhere, maybe in 3, where he can work with Beetee or something. Kiss another girl, someone who understands him a little, appreciates him a lot, more than me.

He gets in late in the afternoon. He, Beetee and some others have flown to 2 to help the rebels capture the mountain-fortress that holds a very sizeable portion of the Capitol's air fleet, along with other weapons and an intelligence unit. This fortress, nicknamed the Nut, has been impossible to take, although rebel forces are at least able to contain the hovercraft now. The only entrance into the mountain is well-guarded and the inner workings of the converted mine are more than a mile in, protected by not just the layers of rock but reinforced concrete. They have emergency supplies to last for months in there. No amount of the Mockingjay's song, nor the forces controlled by 2's rebel leader, Lyme, a tall and imposing Victor, has resulted in a successful incursion. But 13 wants this mountain not just contained, but controlled, before they even think about marching on the Capitol.

I'm plucking the geese - alone in a small clearing in a birch forest, silver and gold with the shivering leaves - when Gale finds me, and he smiles at me. And I smile at him. He looks good, of course - one of the few people whom the baggy 13 uniforms actually flatters - dark hair cut short so that his chiseled features and his bright gray eyes are the more noticeable. Healthy, strong - and sane. He joins me and gives a low whistle in admiration at the pile of carcasses that surround me. But makes no other greeting, just grabs a bird and starts plucking. It's only after we've done this for a little bit, settling into an oddly companionable silence, that he says, "Any chance we'll get to eat these?"

"Yeah, most go to the camp kitchen, but they expect me to give a couple to whoever I'm staying with tonight. For keeping me."

"Isn't the honor of the thing enough?" he asks sardonically.

"You'd think. But word's gotten out that mockingjays are hazardous to your health."

He gives a low chuckle at that, then, without warning, abruptly says, "I saw Peeta yesterday. Through the glass."

It's so rare for him to voluntarily mention Peeta that I look up sharply. He's not looking at me, though. Well? At least from Gale I might get some news of Peeta's condition that lies between Plutarch's fulsome and Haymitch's depressing updates. "What did you think?" I ask tensely.

"Something selfish."

I grit my teeth and yank feathers with more aggression than needed. "That you don't have to be jealous of him anymore?" I ask, as down floats all over our heads.

He reaches over and plucks a feather out of my hair. "No. That I don't stand a chance with you unless he recovers. You'd always feel wrong about being with me."

Well - that's one way to put it, I guess. I wonder - say there was a future for me, with Peeta locked away in a padded room and Gale and I free, free of the Capitol and the Rebellion. Wouldn't it be true? That part of me would forever be locked away with Peeta? "The way I always felt wrong kissing him because of you," I say, suddenly realizing the truth of it. That so much of my hesitation with Peeta was born of my obligation to this boy's infatuation for me. Crazy. Of all the things to have happened while the world turned completely upside down, for me to become paralyzed between the affections of these two boys.

And yet, in a strange way, it is all entwined: the romance that sparked the rebellion. My disastrous unwillingness to keep up the act. My fatal decision to stand with Gale. My determination to save Peeta in the Quell. Every decision I've had to make has been through the prism of these relationships.

Gale looks at me with a sober expression. "If I thought that was true, I could almost live with the rest of it."

I blink. "It is true," I tell him sincerely. "But so is what you said about Peeta."

He grunts and rolls his eyes.

And yet, later, I take him into the woods, and there is an intimate silence between us. These woods are both like and unlike our own. There is plenty of evergreen, but it is mixed with these delicate alpine birches and their bright golden leaves. Like us - familiar, but with an added something between us, fragile and foreign.

At one point I stop and I must look so sad … because he holds out his arms to me and I step right into them. Gale puts his lips on the top of my head. Then down to my hairline, just brushing the skin of my forehead with his lower lip. I'm unsuspecting of what is about to happen until he kisses my nose. On the precipice of drawing away from him, my mind says, wearily, _wait_ … and I let him put his lips on my lips. It is a warm and unexpectedly pleasant sensation, like finding a late bud at the end of summer. Perhaps it came too late to fully bloom, but in the moment, in the brown and gray of everything, it's pretty to look at.

There he waits, as if letting me make the next move. During his hesitation, the image floods my brain - the image that must live with him - of course he knows that I know how to kiss, and kiss passionately, if he saw me with Peeta in the arena. The kiss between lovers. I close my eyes and try in vain to recall my promise to Peeta - to move on. But - it's too soon, too impossible. And I don't _want_ to kiss Gale the way I kissed Peeta.

He draws away, almost as if he can read my mind. I make a move to close the gap, to keep trying - because, why not? It will never matter to Peeta. It will never lead to anything real. It's a moment in time, the culmination of years of mutual admiration and intimate closeness; the thing that everyone thought would happen someday. Everyone except for me. And now I know why.

Gale stops my face by taking me by the chin. "Katniss," he says. It is both a plea - and an acknowledgement of a truth he also now knows.

I open my eyes and feel strangely off-kilter.

"What's in your head?" he asks me.

What's in my head is that I don't want to hurt him. "There is something you should know," I say, very slowly. "About -."

"I'm not sure I want to hear it," he says, half turning away.

"I'm not sure I want to tell you. But …." I start to turn away myself. I look out into the trees and squint.

"When did it happen?" he asks, his voice raspy. I can always count on Gale to read my mind.

"In the Capitol."

"In the Capitol, _when_?"

"The night before the Quell." I bite my lip. I never told Gale about all the nights I let Peeta into my bed. Obviously. So this might be hard to explain.

"Okay," he says, putting his hand through his hair. I can tell that he is trying not to be upset, but it's with a great effort. "He didn't - pressure you into it, did he? Last night before the Quell - last chance before dying?"

I try to smile. "That was more my argument with him."

"Right."

"He never - never … never asked or implied it should happen," I say. "And once it … and he tried to make me promise to … look - it happened, OK, and in the circumstances, I - I mean how can I explain it when _I_ don't completely understand?"

"That's not love," he says, a tone of desperation in his voice. In the tone are the things he is finally laying bare - the days and nights he watched it growing, watched me slipping away, and could do nothing but stare at a television screen. Compelled to watch, and hating it. Maybe I now understand that it would _never_ have happened between us, but from Gale's perspective, he watched in real time as the star-crossed lovers joined, dissolved and rejoined. Desperately clinging to the promise that it was all an act, even as the evidence started piling up otherwise. I choose my next words with extreme care. Hurting Gale is not what I do. Except that it is, now.

"No, but …. But it was - something."

He sighs. "Well, it goes to prove my point at least. As long as he is … damaged … you'll never move on."

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

I shrug. There are some things I won't apologize for, not even to spare Gale.

He runs his hands through his hair. "I hate _them_. I hate _him_. They took you away and you have never been the same."

And then I burst into tears.

But now Gale won't touch me, even to comfort me. He just stands there, watching me cry. And it feels like an ugly cry - within seconds my face is slick with tears and snot.

"I hate to see the way you care about him," he says, more gently.

"I - I can't help it," I hiccup. "I -." But of course I can explain no further, nor do I have to. There are many things I can fake, but sexual attraction to a person is not one of them. Gale knows. He saw. "But I wish I never did. They used that - to destroy him. And me. I'll always live with it. And his whole family is gone. I'm all that's left and he _hates_ me. But I'm all he has left."

Gale blinks at me. "If you care about that, then what are you even doing here, Katniss? This is no safe place for you."

"I can't stop now, and anyway - I'm not safe, anywhere. Anywhere. Even in 13 - of all places. There's a person there who specifically wants to kill me. I just need this whole thing to end, so I can - so there will be a place to go."

Gale snorts. "This whole thing is a long way from ending. Taking care of the Nut is just the end of the first phase."

"What's happening with the Nut?"

"I don't know - we're all going into the rebel HQ in town to meet with Lyme about it. Seems like it should be easy enough to capture resources that are all gathered in one place."

I shrug, having not really paid much attention to that aspect of it. I'm here to shout slogans, not strategize operations. But I'm very curious about the meeting. And - strangely - although things between us have transpired in disappointment for Gale and embarrassment for me, I feel that there is a lightness between us now, as if the things we have been keeping from each other since reuniting in 13 have finally been said, and the widening gap between us can begin to close. I would so love it - to be good friends with him again.

* * *

On the rooftop again. Everything lately is reminiscent of something from the past, and, although the Justice Building is nowhere near as tall as the Tribute Center, there is a strange sense of deja vu, standing on the top of the building, looking down on the lights of the town - a small city, really, this large, main hub of District 2. The mountains in the background. A sense of unreality - of the alien presence of the people below us. I'm dressed up again, in Cinna's armor that is as much a costume as it is a shield and it is with him in my mind, but also, inevitably and in spite of myself, Peeta, Peeta, Peeta that I look out at the swarm of lights clustering around the Nut and know, in my heart, that something is wrong.

It was on that other rooftop, looking down at those people we so despised - about to be sacrificed for their entertainment - that Peeta looked at me and said the first thing anyone has ever said to me that transcended the time and circumstances so thoroughly that the words eventually became relevant to _everything_. How he knew such things then, I've often wondered. Perhaps there is a lot of introspection to be had in the exercise of frosting cakes. And my initial rejection of the words made their impact even more powerful when I found myself in the arena and discovered them to be true.

 _I want to show them - I'm not just a piece in their games._

Not simple, in our world, where we were controlled so thoroughly. But ultimately, like so many things that are profoundly true, perfectly simple.

What he meant, I came to realize, wasn't the game itself, of which we were, assuredly, pieces. But their right to force us to play it. I am not a tool for their use; when Rue died, I began to realize this - and I acted on this and I survived. That was the first time they wanted me to kill Peeta - retracting the promise to let us both live at the end of the Game - but I refused to do it, and I gambled and I lived. But even if hadn't - and so easily I might not have - it would have still been worth it to deny them me as their plaything. Because once one person begins to wrest control of her life back from the Capitol, the next person will be able to wriggle further, and the next one further still. I've just been so lucky - with Cinna, with Peeta, even with Haymitch's help - to have managed to break free. And yet ….

And yet, here I am, with this unease on me again. And it is not only the real Peeta's words that come to me, but even those of a more recent vintage: _Do you trust the people you're with?_ he whispers to me in the evening air. The uneasy feeling has been growing in me since the "brains" got together to decide the fate of the Nut. And - this also is starting to feel depressingly inevitable - I found myself at odds with Gale, once again, as he argued for burying the Nut, entirely, in avalanches. Not just the weapons and aircraft, but the people inside.

In the end, Coin authorized only part of this plan, agreeing to the avalanches but not to sealing the mountain entirely. We will be leaving the train tunnel free, for the survivors of the assault on the mountain to escape into our waiting arms. Someone even brought up Peeta's own argument about wasting lives in the conflict. Apparently we are closer than I realized to the extinction he promised if we don't stop killing each other. Snow's words, surely. But not all of Snow's words are false. Just as Coin's are not all true. She has been … yes, she has been manipulating me, in ways I am more inclined to go along with because our end-goals at some point include the same major objective: the downfall of Snow. From there, my goals travel (hopefully) to a quick end, released from all this madness and guilt. So, I haven't been worrying about her goals. But look at the evidence.

First, I was plucked from the arena with assurances that Peeta was either dead, or as good as. So I might as well get on with things. When that didn't work, they brought me Cinna's designs, Haymitch's direction, Gale's partnership. I was sent to a safe district, supposedly cleared of incoming attacks, and there attacked. When I cracked under Peeta's absence, they finally plucked him from the Capitol - and it was "easier" than they expected. And when he came back destroyed, because they waited too long, it only goaded me to throw myself deeper into their services.

And here I am, about to watch them bury the Nut. And I can visualize it. As I've always visualized those last minutes of my father's life, when he maybe heard the _whoosh_ of the explosion that was about to collapse the interior of the mine, that was about to disintegrate him out of existence.

These are not Capitolites, partying in the streets - but even if they were, even if they _were_ \- these are District citizens, some of them, yes, fighting on the wrong side. But many of them just there because they were compelled, because they were needy, because they volunteered as our own spies. I think - with a strangely deep regret - of Cato, who Peeta and I killed between us (though it was my arrow that ended his miserable fight against the mutts). How if he had been raised with a choice - with that one thought - not to be a piece in the Games - how might he have turned out differently? How might his strength have been put to better use?

 _No, Katniss._ This voice is Gale's. They helped destroy our district - our friends and relatives, innocent men, women and children. They would kill you in a heartbeat. There is no changing this, so they have to die. But - do they? What if they don't? What if we could keep on trying - keep on trying to make allies in the arena, instead of constantly, constantly playing to the death? If I could be allies with Finnick, even with Johanna - with Plutarch and my prep team from the Capitol - isn't anything possible? And where could it end? How far could it go? But destroying the Nut will only make us more enemies. You can't ever fully silence the dead. You can't kill enough people. Always, your violence will cause someone to rise up against you. As the Capitol knows. As Thirteen knows.

It's too late for the Nut, though. I took Gale off to calm down in the woods - this time there was open hostility between us, no kisses or painful conversation - and let the inevitable happen. I'm just a mouthpiece, after all. I'm just a piece in their games.

But as the Nut falls, something stirs in me. Something belonging not to Gale nor the Rebellion - nor to the Capitol nor the Games. Not really. Perhaps it is informed by all of these things, but my imagination takes me back again, to my father's end, and how keenly I always visualized it. I can see them now, the people we have trapped in the Nut - their dismissal of yet another attack by District 2 turning into confusion and panic as the mountain starts to collapse around them. Lights switching off, abruptly, air vents filling with dust. My hands go to my mouth, as all my fears about being a part of something large and out of control come back to me. An avalanche, thoughtless, powerful.

"Katniss?"

I jump at Haymitch's voice in my ears. I forgot I was connected to him, in case a speech is needed. But for now, he tells me, I need to get off the roof, as I'm too exposed here. I follow Boggs and the other mix of 13 and 2 rebels down into the interior of the justice building and then into the large, entrance hall, all cold white marble and columns tipped with gold. I sit wearily down against a pillar and I must shiver visibly, because Boggs offers to bring me a blanket. Before I can protest or assent, he goes, and I'm left alone with the thoughts of my father. Alone except for Haymitch, whose voice pipes up suddenly in my ear.

"Katniss - thought you should know," he says, his voice far away and staticky in my ear. "We had an interesting development with Peeta today."

I suppress the encouraging leap my heart takes, remind myself that "interesting" developments with Peeta tend to mean they can trust him to hold a utensil.

"We showed him something we thought he would have no association with - that tape of you singing in District 12 - 'The Hanging Tree?' Beetee never ended up using that footage, so we thought it would be safe. Turns out - he remembered the song."

Really? I think to myself, my mind spinning. Where would he have … a forbidden song ...? "No, Haymitch," I say, firmly, coolly. "That's got to be just tracker jacker confusion. He never heard me sing that song before."

"Not you - your father. He says your father was singing it one day when he came to trade at the bakery - Peeta thinks he was six or seven. He distinctly remembered it because he says he listened to hear if the birds would stop singing at your father's voice." There's a long pause, while my gut clenches in pain at the thought of that little boy and this connection I never even knew about before. "I guess they did."

"Was I there too?" I ask, unable really to tell whether this is good news or not.

"Don't think so. No mention of you, anyway. But it's the first connection to you that hasn't triggered a mental meltdown." I can think of no response to this, and silence falls between us for a few minutes, until Haymitch adds, "Well, it's something, Katniss," and signs off. I'm still struggling to figure out my reaction to this news when Boggs returns with a blanket he drapes gently over me, and the fatherly gesture only adds to this uneasy feeling that is everywhere inside me now - my father - buried, by proxy, again in the Nut; singing his way into the deep tangles of Peeta's memories; glancing at me through Boggs' eyes. I wonder what my father would have done if he had been alive when Prim was Reaped and I stepped forward to take her place. It's impossible for me to imagine him letting me go. He was the one who took me outside the fence, who taught me take care of myself. Maybe, as I turned 12, he would have fled with us from the District, just as Gale suggested that we do. He was always looking for alternatives. He was a gentle man, not a rebel - or not an openly rebellious person like Gale. But nor did he just accept things the way they were "supposed" to be. What confidence it would have taken a miner to woo a merchant girl. What nerve to teach his daughter to sneak out of the district and hunt. To openly sing a forbidden song, not just in front of me, but apparently in front of the Mellarks.

No, he would have searched for alternatives. …. Like Peeta, a bit, I think, a little surprised at the thought, as I have never really connected them together that way before. Peeta, who refused to play the Game, not just once but twice; who would have tried to talk people out of fighting - who would have the words, tonight, to stop the rebels from the fight they prepare tonight. Readying their weapons to fight the escapees from the Nut, if need be. I pat the pocket where the pearl is - feel the small lump - and wish I had his words. He may be gone, but I remain, and I should somehow find a way to speak for him, his representative in the real world. Because I see, so clearly, how right he was - from the very beginning.

Haymitch rouses me again, this time to finally give the speech I have been prepped for. We need to let the loyalists know that, with the destruction of the Nut, it's over now, in 2, and if they lay down their arms, a peaceful resolution to the current conflict will come quicker, with fewer losses on both sides. Haymitch assures me that he will talk me through the speech, and that it will be quick, to limit my exposure. At first, I am just happy to have something to do, to escape the dark chasm of my thoughts. But as I go outside to stand on the veranda, by myself, with nothing but the moon really visible to me - my guards and cameras alike shrouded in darkness - I start to feel a little anxious. Not just because of the exposure, but also because of the task. I'm so confused by my role in all of this. I am a symbol, not a rabble-rouser. I lead by example, not by elocution. This much has become all too clear. And, more than ever, I am struck - standing pretty much exactly where I stood on the second-to-last stop of the Victory Tour, ignoring the stony-eyed looks from the families of Clove and Cato - by the absence of the person who is supposed to be beside me in these moments, providing the words in a way that I can't. At this moment, the lack of him feels almost palpable, physical, like a suddenly-missing limb.

But on cue, I start the speech. I just have the first line out when finally it appears - the train carrying survivors from the Nut. Everyone suddenly jumps into action, and I am terrified of the consequences of the guns trained on the evacuees. Sure enough, as soon as the train screeches to a halt, there is confusion and gunfire. The first evacuees jump from the train, only to duck to the ground, as if they anticipated the fire blazing over their heads. Gunfire takes out the lights in the station, and darkness covers everything until a fire erupts, somewhere in the background, creating a pale, ghostly backlight.

A young man jumps out of the train now, and staggers up toward the justice building, clutching his face. I hear the clicks of the weapons as they mark him and I panic. He collapses to the ground, still holding a wound on his face, and groaning. Before I know what I'm doing - before anyone can order me back, before Haymitch can pipe in - I am running to him, crying stop, stop!

It's when I'm just upon him that I learn he is not quite as disoriented as he looks at first glance, and before I know it, his gun is trained right on my face, and I raise my bow over my head.

"Freeze," hisses Haymitch in my ear - no worries there. Despite all the danger that I've been in so far, this is the first sort of intimate, one-on-one confrontation I've ever had with a gun. And yet I feel no real fear, despite the fact that the gun is pointed dead center at the one part of my body that is not protected by Cinna's armor. Whether it's adrenaline, or the low regard with which I've come to view my life, I do not know.

"Give me one reason I shouldn't shoot you," he rasps at me.

I look at him - my enemy. District 2 routinely provides me enemies - but false ones, really. Cato and Clove, Brutus and Enobaria - barriers to the end, but once the end is reached - the complete wasteland that is victory in the Games, or the confusion that is retrieval by the rebellion - their ultimate role is revealed. Just fellow slaves. Just fellow slaves. "I can't," I tell him, brutal in my honesty. "I can't. That's the problem, isn't it?" I lower my bow. "We blew up your mine. You burned my district to the ground. We've got every reason to kill each other. So do it. Make the Capitol happy. I'm tired of killing their slaves for them." I drop the bow now, let it hit the ground, and I nudge it away with my foot. I'm weaponless now, except for words, words that wind their way through time, and come into me and ignite me - pass through me and come out of me.

"I'm not their slave," the man mutters.

"I am," I tell him in my new voice. "That's why I killed Cato - and he killed Thresh - and Thresh killed Clove - and she tried to kill me. It just goes around and around, and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I'm tired of being a piece in their Games."

I barely see the man before me. Something strange is happening to me, and when I look at the frightened man, trying to decide whether or not to kill me, I see - myself, I think. Peeta's words are flooding me, and suddenly I understand them completely, as I never did before. And maybe he's watching now - or they will show them this footage later and that he will know that I finally know - and he'll forgive me some time after I'm dead.

Haymitch's voice is soft in my ear again. "Keep talking. Tell them about watching the mountain go down."

"When I saw that mountain fall tonight, I thought- they've done it again. Got me to kill you - the people in the Districts. But why did I do it? District 12 and District 2 have no fight except the one the Capitol gave us. And why are you fighting with the rebels on the rooftops? With Lyme, who was your victor? With people who were your neighbors, maybe even your family?"

There's a slight tremble in his fingers, but the young man doesn't drop the gun. "I don't know," he says.

I straighten up and turn around - turn my back to him and his gun. "And you up there?" I say, addressing the machine guns that are hidden in the darkness - and one other boy, a boy who has gone off track. "I come from a mining town. Since when do miners condemn other miners to that kind of death, and then stand by to kill whoever manages to crawl from the rubble?"

"Who is the enemy?" whispers Haymitch, his own voice raw with tension - with a kind of taut excitement.

"These people are not your enemy!" I shout at the rebels - at last, calling them on their shit. I turn back around toward the train station and the silhouettes lying, sitting in the darkness, just looking at me. All of them, everyone really, being so foolish and stubborn as lives are lost to the Capitol - now and yesterday, last year, ten years, fifty, seventy-five ... and on and on. "The rebels are not your enemy! We all have one enemy, and it's the Capitol! This is our chance to put an end to their power, but we need every district person to do it!" At last, at last, at last - I am saying what I want to say, what I need to say. "Please! Join us!"

There is a pause - a very long-seeming and silent pause. I look up at the screens, hoping they will show me the aftermath of my words - the throwing down of arms, the reconciliation of District Two loyalists and rebels. Instead I see a flash of gunfire - and myself, fly backwards into darkness.


	13. Always

Always

* * *

"Always."

The boy is elusive, surprisingly so. For all the noise he makes while walking, when he wants to hide, he can absolutely vanish. He has disappeared, and my searching for him is in vain. I know how this should end. I will see the blood stains he left behind, the tracks in the mud, but I am not a good enough hunter for his evasive skills. I will not be able to locate him until he chooses to respond to my call. I will call for him, my voice low, and the mockingjays will take up his name as if it is a song. Peeee-ta. Peee-ta.

But the terrain here is unfamiliar. The surfaces are soft, not hard - there is nothing but give and the tracks are too faint. His voice is faint and it seems to come from everywhere and nowhere: "Always."

I catch a scent - a scent that is so specifically him. Cinnamon and dill: sweet and bitter, orange and green, warm and cool. It too comes from everywhere and leads nowhere. A brush on my cheek. His fingers, curved slightly against my skin. With a gasp, I reach up to catch them, but they are not there.

And then I wake from this dream and - frustrating as it was - try to dive back down into it. Because I remember now - I remember and I want to go back. To give him the invitation in the first place, the one that will keep him here.

"Stay with me."

Stay with me, I told him. That night the sleep syrup dissolved both the wall and the bind between us and, under its influence, I revealed my need for him - whatever it was. I took his hand, pressed it against my cheek - smelled the baking of the day - and commanded him to stay. The sleep syrup took me before I heard his response. If I thought about it at all, I assumed it was a simple assent. And even that was more than I should have expected of him - I know he thought that I had left District 12 that day, and probably with Gale. But it was Peeta I summoned.

"Stay with me."

"Always." His response has come to me now, disentangling itself from the deep strands of my memory where it has been lying, waiting for release, for my acknowledgement.

Once again, my understanding comes too late. So his word is no longer a promise, but a taunt from the land of dreams. The only place I can find him, now, this boy and his gentle words. Pain … the psychic pain as well as the physical pain - the throbbing ache where the bullet hit the left side of my armor … pain floods me now.

And I am here - once again - as if drawn to this place like steel to a magnet: the hospital in District 13, attached to monitors.

Gale came by to see me, once, interrupting a strange and tense visit from Johanna, who spent a little too much time complaining about the strength of my morphling. I wish it was stronger. I so wish it was. But, because I was so nauseous when I was first here, both before and after my miscarriage, it's in my medical records that I may be morphling-sensitive; so I'm just on a barely-higher-than normal dose of basic painkillers. Perhaps the pain made me testier than I needed to be with Gale because when he gently admonished me for running straight into trouble, I reminded him who it was who decided to take down a mountain.

"You think I'm heartless."

"I know you're not," I told him. "But I won't tell you it's OK."

"Katniss, what difference is there, really between crushing our enemy in a mine or blowing them out of the sky with Beetee's arrows? The result is the same."

"I don't know. We were under attack in 8 for one thing. The hospital was under attack."

"Yes, and those hoverplanes came from District 2. So by taking them out, we prevented further attacks."

I gaped at him. "But that kind of thinking … you could turn it into an argument for killing anyone, at any time. You could justify sending kids into the Hunger Games to prevent the districts from getting out of line."

"I don't buy that," he said.

"I do - it must be all those trips to the arena."

And that's how we ended it - again at an impasse. His argument is bolstered by the fact that District 2 is now, officially, in Rebel hands, the final of the thirteen districts. The Capitol stands alone, now. That's a good thing. But my promise - my vow - my desire to kill Snow? That is a problem that still needs to be worked out.

One morning, I'm joined by Plutarch while walking around the fenced area above ground, rehabilitating, and he sits me down and shakes his head.

"Well," he says. "Well - that was a close one."

I shrug. Even that motion makes everything in my body hurt and I involuntarily gasp. "I don't suppose you can pull some strings in the hospital and get me on stronger stuff." I explain about the problem with my medical history - he's one of the only people who actually knows the full truth - and he nods sympathetically. But he doesn't address my concerns.

"Can I ask you something? The baby. Was it - uh …?"

"Peeta's?" I finish his sentence, swallowing painfully. "Yes."

"You were actually pregnant when he said you were?"

"No," I say, then I twist my mouth in an ironic smile. "He was a few hours premature on that one."

Plutarch doesn't appreciate the joke. "I've never known why they wait until the day of the Games to give the hormone shots. I can assure you, you are not the first pair of tributes to - uh …."

Desperately fuck in the Tribute Center? No, I'm sure we weren't. And Plutarch's right. I guess the Capitol never really cared because - most of the girls end up dead, anyway, and a living victor, impregnated by a dead Tribute, would have her own kind of appeal, perhaps. Or, actually, have even more for the Capitol to hold over her. God, the twisted ….

"So, I take it he has no idea."

"Not unless someone has told him," I respond, suppressing a shudder. I know that tone in Plutarch's voice. He's looking for an angle, a new storyline. Just like everything else about my relationship with Peeta, the Capitol considers this awfulness trademarked.

He looks like I've wrongfully accused him of shoplifting. "No, that's - not our business. Although, we might want to discuss, some time, if it would be useful to his recovery to remember - how close he was to you."

My interior squirms like a worm exposed to the sun, but I think I keep my face neutral when I assure him I look forward to that conversation. "In the meanwhile, what's next for the Mockingjay?"

"Now that 2 has fallen, we have a bit of a reprieve, fortunately," he says. "Now we are moving primarily to a military phase, and the propos are not quite as important - not right now."

"We're moving on the Capitol?" I ask, my arms tingling in spite of myself.

"Not yet; we're gathering intel, training the new recruits from the Districts to fight. All of that. Right now, we don't need you to rally the Districts - they are eager to go. It's the Capitol … it's cut off now, as 13 was during the Dark Days - no supplies, no help from 1 or 2. Unlike 13, it has no ability to reinvent itself and become self-sufficient. Oh, it might be able to scrape by for awhile. Certainly, there are emergency supplies stockpiled. But the significant difference between 13 and the Capitol are the expectations of the populace. Thirteen was used to hardship, whereas in the Capitol all they've known is Panem et Circenses."

"What's that?"

"It's a saying from thousands of years ago, written in a language called Latin about a place called Rome. Panem et Circenses translates into 'bread and circuses.' It means that - in return for full bellies and entertainment, the people of Rome had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power."

I ponder this for a moment. "So they won't even rise up against Snow - even now - is that what you're saying?"

"Not without powerful persuasion."

He's right, I think. And I'm not just bowing to his greater knowledge of the populace. I've seen it myself. I've seen them respond to my dresses - I've seen them respond powerfully to Peeta's emotional fabrications of our romance - but it never has been enough to cause an uprising among them. They are Snow's. And while my actions were enough to ignite the districts - my performance as the Mockingjay enough to help spread the flame - I don't have anywhere near that influence on them. Peeta might, though, I think - and the thought brings unease. He came closer than anyone. It was his carrying of the romance that caused the Game to go our way with them in the first place. Now, with the world allied against them, maybe they are finally ready.

Well - the old Peeta. Is this how 13 will use him? I wonder. Dress him up and feed him lines to deliver back to the Capitol as Snow made him do to us? I shake my head. I would hope that having his identity violently stripped down, rendering him an unstable shell of himself, would have meant Peeta at least being spared this whole pageant. I try not to care, but I just haven't figured out how to do that yet.

"What?" asks Plutarch.

"So that's what the districts are for. To provide the bread and circuses."

"Yes, and as long as that kept rolling in, the Capitol could control its little empire. Right now it can provide neither, at least at the standard the people are accustomed to. We have the food and I'm about to orchestrate an entertainment propo that's sure to be popular. After all, everybody loves a wedding."

I gape at him, my jaw dropping open. They truly are one-track minds, these people from the Capitol. Everything is on a script with them. My wedding to Peeta was promised to the Capitol as the culmination of the love story with which they took so much strange delight. So it must go on - despite the interruption of madness and the fact that he doesn't think that I am a human being - and I don't think he's quite one anymore, either. Haymitch has given me no more updates, and I know what silence means. "Are you -?" I choke.

"Oh, no, Katniss," Plutarch laughs. "Not your wedding. Finnick and Annie's. All you need to do is show up and pretend to be happy for them."

"That's one of the few things I won't have to pretend," I tell him.

I move back once again to the quarters I share with my mother and sister as the wedding planning ramps up and takes up all the energy and focus of the moment , allowing me to fade gently into the background for the time being. Now, the daily updates I get are the ones that highlight the growing tension between Plutarch and Coin about how elaborate or simple this wedding is going to be. Plutarch insists that this be treated like the most elaborate propo possible - a full on Capitol-style wedding, with three days of celebration including everyone resident in Thirteen. A wedding, to Coin, means signing a paper and the assignment of quarters. Plutarch has to fight her on every single detail.

Just to pique Coin a bit - and because I'm very happy for Finnick - I offer up a dress of mine for Annie to wear as a wedding gown. By which I mean a dress of Cinna's, that I still have quite a collection of at my house in Twelve. Not the wedding dresses, but the dresses I wore on the Victory Tour, primarily.

Coin raises no objections to my leaving Thirteen and going to Twelve - despite the potential for danger; very interesting, I think. I don't care. Anyway, no more air strikes come from the Capitol. They are hemmed in. A hovercraft deposits me, Annie, Octavia, Flavius and Venia right on the green of Victor's Village and we hurry in, admire the collection of Cinna's dresses, and return to Thirteen before most people know that I have gone.

The preps helped me pick out the dress - a long gown of pale green silk with short sleeves and bunches of pink flowers lining the hems. I wore it in District 5. We all agree, when Annie tries it on and it is just a smidge too short for her, that the color and cut go well with her coloring and build. Flavius went over to Peeta's house and picked out one of his suits, a pale blue one, for Finnick. On the way home, he chatted to the others about what would be needed to alter it for Finnick - Peeta is taller and used to be a little broader - and I try not to listen. Try not to think about how it is like when you dispose of the possessions of the dead.

Within a week, the wedding is prepared and, despite both Coin's and Plutarch's unhappiness with all the compromises, for everyone else, the whole thing is a resounding success. Autumn flora decorates the great hall where Thirteen holds its announcements. Annie Cresta, pale and quiet, is married to Finnick Odair, pale and bursting with happiness, by Dalton, the guy from District 10, who appears to know the District 4 ceremony. A net that is suspended over the couple. The bowl of salt water they use to solemnly seal each other's lips. The singing of the District 4 wedding song, performed by a choir of children.

After the ceremony, there is a toast (with apple cider, an indignity Plutarch will probably never forget) and then, unexpectedly, the sound of a fiddle - someone from District 12 managed to escape with his instrument. Greasy Sae grabs Gale by the hand and stands up to begin the reel. Nearly everyone in 12 rises to join them; the call of the fiddle is not resistable.

I, however, stand to the side, just watching and clapping. I'm tired - I'm sore - I don't want to be the center of attention. Then I feel a pinch on my elbow and am startled to see Johanna there, a kerchief covering her head, and I suppress the tension that usually automatically starts to stiffen my limbs when she comes near me. Some part of me has never fully trusted her; and I know she has never really liked me.

"Are you going to miss the opportunity to let Snow see you dancing?" she asks me.

I glance at her. Her face is as hard as ever, but her eyes have changed since the Quell. They are softer than they used to be, cloudier, closer to tears. I don't know why they shaved her head. I don't know what they did to give her the bruises that are still fading on her face. I can't even comprehend - and I can't ask her. Even though she might have some of the answers I crave about what they did to Peeta. But she's right. I give her a small smile - which she returns - and I move toward the crowd to find my sister, who has been my dance partner my whole life. It does hurt. It does exhaust me, but I find myself smiling, even laughing, as I lose myself in the music, concentrating on the steps and twirls. I can feel myself flush with life when the dancing finally ends and everyone applauds spontaneously.

Then there is a stir at one end of the room and the crowd parts, a sound gathering as it does. I hear "oohs" and "aahs" and look in confusion for the source. That's when I see that they are wheeling in a massive cake. Massive. Four oversized tiers of white-frosted cake, splashed on all sides with bright colors. I have a strange, funny flashback … "I'm still hoping for a cake arena," Peeta says, smiling wryly … as I stumble toward it, unbelieving. The boy did not hold any of Peeta inside him, last I saw. But this - this - dessert somehow does. The decorations on this cake, in honor of the bride and groom, leap from tier to tier - waves of bright turquoise rise and fall along the edges, tipped with some kind of sugared foam. Pink and purple flowers float on the waves, fish and sailboats dance on the sides, seals stretch out on realistic looking rocks. A net - so elaborately knitted together with silver frosting - tumbles from the top of the cake to the bottom, holding within it starfish and shells, an octopus and seahorses.

When I put my face right up to it, shaking my head in disbelief, I see it - something familiar in the piping of the waves, in the whimsey of the sea creatures. It's a larger canvas than he ever had to paint on at home, but there is no doubt - none - that only one person decorated this cake.

"Let's you and me have a talk," says a voice in my ear.

I follow Haymitch out of the assembly room into the quiet of the corridors, now on evening light settings. I sway as I look up at him, out of breath - hurting now from the exertion of dancing - and dizzy with anticipation.

"Yes," he says.

"What's happening to him?" I ask, shakily. The boy I last saw could never, ever have maintained focus to create something so beautiful - and so perfect for its audience.

Haymitch shakes his head. "I don't know. None of us knows. Sometimes he's almost rational and then, for no reason, he goes off again. Doing the cake was a kind of therapy. He's been working on it for days. Watching him … he seemed almost like before."

I bite my lip. I will not let Haymitch get my hopes up. "So, he's got the run of the place?" I ask, a little anxiously, and look around as if expecting him to walk right around the corner.

"Oh, no. He frosted under heavy guard. He's still under lock and key. But - I've talked to him."

I try to count the number of days. He's only been here about four weeks or so; surely, this progress is more rapid than anyone expected, even Plutarch. "Face to face?" I ask Haymitch. "And he didn't go nuts?"

"No. Pretty angry with me, but for all the right reasons. Not telling him about the rebel plot and whatnot." In the pause, I stare at Haymitch's face, searching his expression for more news - more - anything. Finally, he says, "He says he'd like to see you."

I lean back a little, holding out my palm to steady myself against the wall. I feel the floor shift beneath me, and in vain I try to remind myself of my current plan. I let Peeta go in 2 - mourned him, as one would the dead, trying not to resent the living creature that had taken his place. To see me fills him with fear and anger; to see him fills me with anger and sadness. Never again was I planning to see him; never again was I expecting him to request it. The elusive boy, who I could not find until he let me.

There is no possible way to refuse.

It takes a few hours to arrange. First we have to wait for Plutarch, who remains in the control room on the wedding ceremony until Finnick and Annie are carried away on a chair by the happy crowd. Then I have to be fitted with a headset - a line to Haymitch who will be watching, along with who knows how many people, from the little room with the one-way glass. This gives me pause. For so many reasons, I wish this meeting between us could be private - Peeta restrained, sure - but no one around to hear the questions I have to ask him, the memories I have to probe. It's hard for me to be myself with so many eyes on me, and these last few years of costumes and competing storylines really haven't helped.

But I don't have the ordering of my life, any more than he does his own, so I wait outside his door until Haymitch's voice in my head says that I am cleared to go. Then I take several ragged breaths, brace myself for the worst, and let myself in his room.

He's waiting for me, already watching the door as I come sidling in. His blue eyes (again, a little clearer than the last time I saw him) lock on my face and I take a defensive position against the door as it closes, arms crossed over my sore ribs (the dancing, I realize now, was a huge mistake). Then, as he stares, I take a few tentative steps forward. I note the tense lines in his face (the bruises and sores are fewer); the straining muscles of his arms (he is hooked up to six IV lines filled with knock-out drugs) and the slight tremble in his fingers. He's afraid of me - or of this encounter, at least.

"Hey," he says finally. It's almost his voice. Almost his voice. Almost.

"Hey," I say, crossing my arms over myself again, as if he could see through to all of my secrets. "Haymitch said you wanted to talk to me?"

"See you, for starters," he says, staring at me curiously, as if surprised to see me in human form. I wriggle uncomfortably under his stare, eventually glancing at the one-way window for any kind of help or guidance as to what to say. But - I get nothing.

"Well?" I finally say, as he seems struck mute.

"Something …"

I look closely at him and see him struggling with a memory - and I realize, I think, what it is. The same flicker of a memory that stopped him, I'm pretty sure, in the middle of the attack. Does he remember? How does this memory jibe with the ones the Capitol gave him - the lies about me being a mutt (they did say he was about over that, didn't they)?

"You're not very big," he says, unexpectedly. "Or particularly pretty."

Ouch. That is - surprisingly painful. I've never given much thought to my looks, apart from the primping that has been done on me for various audiences over the last couple of years. Has Peeta ever actually called me pretty? Beautiful? Lovely? Maybe not - I guess I always took it for granted that if one has a crush on someone it implies a certain attraction. I feel the blush burn on my cheeks. "Well - you've looked better," I say, without thinking. I hear Haymitch start to protest in my ears, but whatever he says is drowned out by Peeta's bitter laugh.

"And not even remotely nice," he says. "To say that to me after all I've been through."

I pause. This is a new and strange version of the boy. Rude … self-pitying. This is not the boy I knew. I try to manage this - try to figure out where it comes from. But all I can think about is the boy he replaced, the one with the tender lips, the fingers that feathered along my back, across my thigh. And I am so angry at this person who dares to inhabit the body of my lover, that I can't help myself. I want to hurt him, to drive him out. "Yeah, well, we've all been through a lot. Anyway, you were the one who was always known as the nice one. Not me." I am impressed and alarmed at my own nerve in saying this. What is wrong with me? He has been tortured, brainwashed, damaged - beyond repair, probably. This is the equivalent of beating a child - unfair, unjust and decidedly cruel. "Look, I don't feel that well. Why don't I come back - some other time?"

Without waiting for a response, I turn away and make a blind move toward the door. My blood is rushing through my veins, blurring my vision. I honestly don't know if I want to punch something or dissolve into tears.

"Katniss," he says, hoarsely. "I remember - about the bread."

I pause at the door, then turn around, helplessly, to face him. His expression has gone from irritated to thoughtful. But I am filled with anger. I shrug. "They showed you the tape."

He squints. "Was there a tape? Why didn't the Capitol use it against me then, I …?"

"I didn't make it until the day - you were rescued. So - what do you remember?" I ask him cautiously.

"You - in the rain, slumped down by the apple tree. I burned the bread. My mother hit me. She told me to feed it to the pig - but I gave it to you."

Yes. Yes, the beginning of everything. "That's right," I say, coolly, not wanting him to know how much I am hanging on to his words, clinging to them as if - if I could just hang on to them - I can take us back again, all the way back. "The next day - I wanted to thank you. I just - I didn't know how."

He looks down at his fingers, laced together now on his lap. "I remember seeing you that day. Across the playground. I remember that you - picked a - a dandelion?"

I nod, breathlessly. This memory is categorically real. I have never spoken of that part of it out loud.

He looks up at me again, intensity in his gaze. A familiar look.

Look at me, he whispers. It's OK. No, Katniss, promise me that you will love someone again, as freely as this. Promise me this - it's the only thing that will make it all worth it.

"I must have loved you a lot," he says, abruptly, breaking the image. Yet, his voice is in me - his true voice.

I blink. "Yes, you did."

He swallows. "And did you love me?"

I lick my lips. On the one hand, there is a crowd of people behind the glass. Who have no right to hear these things. On the other hand…. "Don't you remember?"

He looks stunned. "If I remembered, why would I ask? They showed me all these tapes - in the arena. A lot of kissing. It just didn't look very genuine on your part."

I close my eyes, will him to remember without my needing to spell it out. "We weren't - always - in front of the camera."

"I don't …." the distress in his voice makes me open my eyes in alarm. He's losing it now - I can see the cloudiness return to his face - dim his eyes. He starts to strain against his restraints, and I take an unconscious step backward. "You're a liar. Why won't you just say it? Why? _Always_ all these lies and lies from you!" He gapes at me, as if I'm suddenly unfamiliar to him. "You - you need to leave. I just - I can't look at you, anymore. Get out. Out!"


	14. Bent

**A/N:** Yes, I'm on an accelerated uploading schedule. :) Trying to finish/post all of this before I go on vacation in 3 weeks.

* * *

Bent

* * *

"It feels strange," I say into the awkwardness. "You leaving - me seeing you off, this time."

Gale smiles a little at that; it erases the dark and distant thoughts on his face. I try to call all our history together to the front of my mind. He has changed so little, really over the last five years; everything between us has, though, and I can no longer - I desire no longer to - force it back into place. Whatever lies between Gale and me in the future will have to be built over again from scratch. "That's true," he says.

"Look, if you could do me a favor," I add, then bite my lip. "Could you try not to get yourself killed?"

His smile deepens. "Of course. I think they've trained me pretty well."

"There's so much more than skill," I tell him earnestly. "There's a lot of luck - and outside assistance. And it's so much more real in person that it is on camera. It's much quieter, so incredibly quiet, and it hurts - here," I touch his chest, "to spill blood up close. Like every impulse toward life in you is bent out of shape and it doesn't fit right anymore."

His expression grows very patient. "Sometimes these are the things we must sacrifice so that other people can survive, Katniss."

"I know," I tell him, dropping my hand.

"I was born for this," he says. "Whatever happens to me, you have to promise me you won't wallow in it. You'll move on, knowing that I ended things on my terms, fighting - no longer a slave."

As he touches my cheek with a wry smile, I'm thinking how bad I am at moving on; and them I'm startled by his sudden move toward me, the crush of his lips against my cheek. Nothing more - nothing intimate. Our kisses never have been. Never will be.

"I had to do that," he tells me, a smile in his voice. "At least one last time."

I watch him leave Command - through the artificial meadow and out towards the double-locked doors and the elevators. And I know he's right. This is what he was born to do. No - check that. None of us were born to this. This is what he was shaped, molded, made to do - through temperament and trauma and circumstance. There is no way he would have ever survived, unscathed, the wrath of the Capitol in District 12. Of all of us whose courses have been altered - our lives turned upside down by my return from the Games with Peeta - it might be Gale who has benefited the most. I cross my fingers for him - that he comes back unscathed. Then I leave Command myself.

I make my way up, up, all the way outside, to the fenced-in training ground. It's cold now - the air is frosty. But I breathe it deep into my lungs, grateful for it. I am uneasy, even more restless underground than I used to be. Short of joining the military myself and following Gale, I'm out of ideas for getting myself to the Capitol. Now that I've finally started attending regular strategy meetings, Coin herself is aloof and uncommunicative, and there seems to be no current plan for the Mockingjay, other than prolonged and unnecessary recuperation. I'm hoping I can persuade Plutarch to send me out for a propo, as close to the Capitol as possible, and I can start making my way there on my own.

There are complications to work out first, of course. I don't want to leave my mother and Prim in Coin's care when I go. I don't trust that they won't be made to pay for my transgressions. If there is a way to isolate them from my actions, I have to find it. That leaves Peeta to Haymitch's ….

Peeta. As if I've conjured him up by the thought, I see him now, rounding a corner at the back of the fence line, jogging along with some teenagers - some I recognize, kids from the Seam - all in the baggy District 13 uniform. As is Peeta.

A swoop of anger follows swiftly on the jolt of fear. He is neither shackled nor particularly well watched. He's even armed.

I run back down into 13, deep down again - back to Command. When I step off the elevator, I realize that I don't know where he actually lives in this warren. But I round up Beetee without much trouble, and he gives me directions.

Haymitch has a room surprisingly close to the hospital ward. I suppose that, since both his tributes have spent most of their time there, this makes a certain amount of sense. I startle him by bursting in without knocking - a risky move, probably - but I'm in no mood to worry about Haymitch's feelings. But he's just napping in a chair.

"What?"" he asks me blurrily.

"What in the hell are they doing with Peeta?"

He tries to hide - but just can't quite - the consternation on his face. "What do you think they are doing, Katniss?" he asks me. "He's a rather valuable piece of propaganda."

"It looks like they're prepping him to go into combat."

"They might try to manufacture things to look like it, but it will be mostly props, I-."

"Mostly? They're not actually sending him - to the Capitol. Are they?"

He shakes his head. "You do realize that I have very little control or input as far as what goes on around here, right?"

"You're the one who suggested that _I_ go out into the battlefield," I reply.

"How quickly did you want Coin losing interest in the Mockingjay?" he responds. "We needed results, and fast. And I had to work that room."

I snort, but remember that he is correct on that one. "And now?"

He shrugs, unhappily. "Hopefully it won't take long - to end it. They like Peeta - maybe not as much as they all like you, but it will be effective - showing him fighting for the rebellion."

"And dying for it - possibly?"

He is silent for long moments, the silence stretching everywhere, binding us together - a shared grief, disappointment, worry and a heavy despair. "We'll try to keep the margin for errors low, but -."

I run an impatient hand through my hair. "But what?"

"I admit I am at a loss - what to do with him now. When I talk to him, he is not eager to go back, but … occasionally he mentions that he thinks he has unfinished business - with the people who captured him. I know that doesn't sound like him…."

"Like who? Like Peeta Mellark? Not the old one, maybe - but this one? It sounds about right to me."

"Maybe we shouldn't let the new one make decisions with the old one's life."

I shake my head, as if to clear it. I feel sorry for Haymitch - I truly do. He is clinging on to some faint hope of recovery, refusing to admit that we were defeated. Not entirely, of course; Peeta lives (at least for now) - just not for us. But it's time we stop thinking of him as if he is two persons - one hiding behind the other. "You just said you don't really have any say in the decisions, so how are you planning to achieve that particular goal?"

He blinks at me. By the time I realize what he means by it, I've left his room in frustration and am taking out all my pent-up anger on the staircase with my stomping boots. It's only when I'm two floors away from the corridor where I live that I get it. He means me - that it is my job, again, to protect Peeta Mellark.

* * *

"Mellark. What the hell are you doing?"

He stiffens at the sound of my voice, and turns around very slowly. His raised eyebrows betray his surprise at the weapon - a military gun - that I have trained on him. He gives an exaggerated sigh. "Taking an evening stroll through the woods," he replies, flatly.

We stare at each other for awhile - our expressions too weary, I think, to constitute glares, but sullen, resentful. After a few moments of this, I only want to laugh - to relieve the tension of the silence, but also because this is all just so absurd. He resents me because the Capitol twisted and twisted him until he did. I resent him because he has been twisted. Nothing that is the fault of either of us; just something that was done to us, like the arenas. So, if before I resented unfairly our forced alliance, I should know better than to resent this unnatural enmity between us. It's a waste of energy. Romance … love … that is for the peaceable, anyway. Not me. If you think about it, there's really nothing to resent.

"For two and a half hours after you were expected for 'Reflection Time?'" I ask, sardonically.

Now he does glare at me, as if it is my fault. Not completely without cause. "How did you find me?"

"Don't I always, eventually? Haymitch … was worried about you. He says you are conflicted and - restless."

"So, you've been spying on me?"

I shrug. "Watching you."

"I can't - I can't go back inside there. I'm sick of being confined."

I swallow my sympathetic response and throw him the handcuffs I brought with me. "You haven't proven your reliability yet, Peeta," I tell him. "I'm going to need you to put those on."

"Are you serious?"

"Does it sound like I'm joking?" I retort. Then, when he makes no movement: "Or do you really want me to shoot you - after all this time?"

He grunts. "Seems like it's long overdue."

" _What_?"

"That was the mistake, wasn't it? Both of us coming out of that arena? And since you were the one who was the killer, it makes sense that I was the one who should have been the corpse. Might have saved -." he chokes on his words. "Might have saved some lives, let alone trouble."

"You're such an asshole," I tell him. And I mean it, too - this stranger who has the body and mind and soul of the boy I could have loved - but all of it, body, mind, soul, just warped enough to change everything. "Explain exactly how adding yourself to the pile of corpses changes the fact that there _is_ a pile of corpses?"

"It changes the fact that I have to remember that there are corpses," he answers, angrily.

"Nice of you to expect me to do it for you," I snarl.

He bends down, picks up the cuffs and locks them over his hands. "You will eventually," he says mildly.

"Sit down."

He sits down under the tree and leans his head back against it. His expression is so bleak, so blank, that I'm frightened all of a sudden that he actually means what he says. I look down at the gun - as if I would actually shoot him. For this? For bolting from 13? He probably deserves a medal, really, for slipping their traces. And I really don't want to go back, either. I sigh, push the pack and bow from my shoulder and toss them to the ground, then sit down in the grass, folding my legs. I stare down at the gun, and it takes on a strange quality in my fingers, ceasing to be a describable object; a collection of misshapen parts - a handle, a barrel, a trigger all crammed together - not straight, not curved - bent and angular - ugly. Death.

I look up, and he's blurry now, a little shiny. This is how I imagine he must see me all the time - as if permanently behind a veil of tears. Damn him. _Damn_ him. "Funny how you're the one who put his hands around my throat and yet I'm the one who's going to kill you."

He shrugs. "I didn't mean it. Not really. I don't even really remember it."

"That's not exactly comforting," I tell him.

"Perhaps not for _you_ ," he replies.

I really hate the very specific way that I hate him right now. I hate that he doesn't care about my feelings at all, and I hate myself for hating this. It turns out that, in the absence of love, that void within me fills up pretty easily with uglier emotions. "But why would I want to kill you? For what purpose?"

"Why have you ever?"

I growl in frustration. "I never have - except for when I thought you were helping the Careers kill me. Apart from that - I always thought of you as … " I search frantically for the right word. There really is no single word to describe what he used to be. Except maybe one. "An ally," I say at last.

"Ally," he repeats, almost curiously - as if he's never heard the word before. He moves his lips on it, tasting it. "Ally. I'll add that to the list of words I use to try to figure you out." He pauses. "Friend? Neighbor. Tribute. Victor …. Fiance. Hunter." His voice grows cooler as his list goes on. "Enemy. Target. Mutt." And then, after a pause: "Lover. Ally."

I'm blushing by the end of this. Something in his voice - all the suspicion and resentment - puts me on edge. I've never had to be the calm one, the sane one, in this relationship, and it feels so upside down. "You used to be better with words," I reply shortly.

"I _used_ to be a lot of things."

And then this, which hurts so specifically, so unexpectedly sharply. "You _are_ a lot of things. You - you're a painter. A baker." I'm almost blinded by memories of him, swirls of colors and the scent of herbs. A day he let tea go cold while he drew pictures in a book. A morning I watched him get dressed in the silver light of dawn, pulling on his boots. "You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. You always double-knot your shoelaces." This is impossible. Impossible! How do you tell a person who he is? Everything that he is?

He gapes at me. "How do you know all this about me? We weren't close."

"We weren't - close?" I sputter. "How much closer could we have been?"

He shakes his head. "We were flung together. We were close - but we weren't _close_."

I stare at my hands - they are rested on my knees, knotted together. I think of fingers making contrasting stripes against each other, locked together. The boy and the girl, merged in desperation - though there was something deliberate about it, too. Something fundamentally expected, clicking into place at the right time. No nightmares that night. No silence, either. The natural, animal rhythm of his groans matching the thrust of his hips. My cries rising and falling, the melody to his beat.

No need to ask each other if we enjoyed it. Cashmere and Gloss probably could hear us, eleven floors down.

 _Again_.

I jump to my feet, collect my weapons and my food.

He looks up at me, puzzled. "What?"

"Time to go back."

"I'm not ready."

I almost laugh. How different he is - how recalcitrant and stubborn. If he erred too much in one direction before, it was to be a little too pliant to my wishes and suggestions. Now he resists me with equal force.

"But I thought you wanted to go back to the Capitol."

"Did Haymitch tell you that, too?"

"Yes ... yes, you may not remember this, but we are a team. He's looking out for you."

He laughs shortly.

"Why would you want to go back, anyway?" I ask him, frowning.

"What else is there for me to do?" he asks.

And for that, I have no answer.


	15. Exit Strategy

Exit Strategy

* * *

"Cut," says Cressida wearily.

For a few minutes, as the scream of the missile launcher reaches its crescendo, I have time to contemplate how badly the Rebellion has screwed up. I watch Peeta try not to cringe at the sounds of the battle taking place in the inner City blocks - instead, his pale, blank face growing paler and blanker the longer it goes on. No matter what he felt about it, there is no way he should have come back here, so soon - if ever. No sane person would have allowed this, let alone ordered it.

But since he went - to film propos for District 13 on the streets of the Capitol - so too did I go. It was the perfect way to get to the Capitol and have it sanctioned by 13. I had to plead my case with Plutarch, but when it came down to it, Coin did not need too much convincing. I'm not sure why she didn't want me out here in the first place, but I suspect even she understands that, for whatever reason, most of Panem has fallen for the star-crossed lovers storyline and wants to see a happy ending, if only one faked for the cameras. And I'm beginning to suspect something else, too.

Half the time, they don't want me in my Mockingjay outfit - usually, I'm filmed in the District 13 uniform. As Cressida gets her orders from Plutarch every day, these costuming decisions are being made at the highest levels. I'm pretty sure it means I've been demoted, though they don't quite seem to be able to make up their minds. Or more likely, there are days that Plutarch wins the debates and days that Coin does. Like I care. I did not come to the Capitol to film propos for the war.

I also did not come to keep an eye on Peeta, although I do it anyway. They didn't send him here with much of a team: Cressida and her crew; Finnick - who joined us a couple of days ago to help liven things up; Boggs and a couple of 13 soldiers, all of whom could probably be more use elsewhere. In fact, I feel kind of awful for Boggs - I think he's here with us because he's one of the very few people from 13 I actually like, let alone trust. It's a bit of a demotion for him, as well. Except for Finnick, none of these people are used to Peeta and his strange, erratic moods - the intense quiet, the muttering to himself - that sense of pent-up energy, as if tracker-jacker-rage is just waiting under the surface to explode, and his manic self-control just highlights the fact that it is there.

Strangely, although I know his anger, if it ever resurfaces, is most likely to be directed at me, I am not as worried about it as everyone else around me, especially Boggs, who makes him sleep outside his tent under the eyes of the night watch, and makes sure no real weapons - only the props - come anywhere near him. During the day, Peeta and I play-act as soldiers for the camera: spew encouraging speeches in tandem; pretend to shoot things in tandem. We eat separately at meals and, in down times, go separately to our tents. When I'm with him, I keep an eye on his face. I think I might be able to tell when something is going to go wrong. The sounds of the battle, for instance, are not good for him, and the tension can actually be seen in the stiffening of his jawline. If they are brief, we're usually OK and he quickly relaxes. That's not today.

"Wait," I say, when Cressida signals to Pollux to resume filming. "I think we need a break. Maybe," I add, catching sight of the tightly-knotted muscles at Peeta's neck, "for the day."

"It will be time for dinner soon, anyway," says Boggs, glancing at me.

Cressida sighs and I go, gratefully, toward my tent, to change (I'm in the Mockingjay outfit today), but Finnick waylays me. "How long can he go on like this?" he mutters. "Do we need to get in touch with Haymitch?"

I meet his eyes. Trying not to feel like I'm using Peeta for my own ends, I say, "No, not yet. Haymitch doesn't have a whole lot of say in what's going on here, anyway. And I don't think," I continue in a low tone, "Command really has much concern about what happens to Peeta here. Or me."

Something in his bright eyes flickers - a look of understanding. So perhaps I can leave Peeta in Finnick's care, once I figure out how to slip away. Easier said than done. I need one of the holos, for one thing - a portable machine that tells me where all the booby traps are. As the outer city streets have been evacuated, the Capitol has switched on various hidden weapons: bombs, fire, acid, swarms of mutts - whatever their vast archive of deadly creativity can drum up. Venturing out into the Capitol without a holo is probably suicide.

"Maybe, maybe not," he responds carefully. "But Haymitch should know - what's going on."

I nod and smile. "I'll call him when I can."

I go with Finnick to the mess tent for dinner. It's strange how many sides to him there have actually been, just in the six months or so that I've known him - the arrogant tribute; the ally - barely trusted at first, and then wholly trusted, and then not at all; the shattered and broken young man of District 13, who somehow found ways to pick me up out of my own shattered state. And now, finally, the person he was meant to be, I guess. Happy and confident - eager to be back to his wife, but equally eager to help wipe out the system that abused him for such a very long time.

Peeta had hung back instead of going to dinner, which is not unusual. He does this sometimes, especially when the stress of filming wears him out. So I am unsuspecting, completely off my guard, when I get back from the mess and someone asks where he is.

I tense at once; immediately, I am a predator again and I understand that something is missing - like the scent buried by the wind, like the creature that flitted between shadows and fooled my eyes: my prey has eluded me. Then I ask, "Didn't anyone see him go?" I'm picking up my bow as I say it.

"Stay put," Boggs orders tersely. He takes Finnick and his soldiers out of our unit's small section on the edge of the military encampment that has been set up in the shadow of the Capitol train station. They fan out toward the other units, asking questions, warning them about the unstable boy on the loose. I shake my head and, the minute they are far enough away, hitch my bow over my shoulders and prepare to search in the other direction, when Cressida touches my arm.

"Wait," she says. "Pollux."

The mute cameraman is gesturing - making the signals with his hands that his brother and Cressida both seem to understand. And by all the pointing in certain directions, even I get it.

"How long ago?" I ask.

"Fifteen minutes."

"OK."

"Katniss - wait."

"No time," I say. For good measure, I sling my backpack awkwardly over the armor I'm still, unfortunately, wearing, and spring away in the direction Pollux pointed. It's into the neighborhoods just north of the train station. Toward the front lines.

I jog slowly forward. This section, and most of the neighboring streets, have been cleared of the deadly traps - or "pods" as the rebels call them. You can tell by the razed-over look of the streets, particularly along the edges - the sidewalks and the fronts of buildings are crumbled where tanks and other heavy equipment have rolled through, making the spaces safe for the advancing armies. But not all the streets have been touched and I hesitate at the very first intersection, looking down a pristine street with its smooth concrete and unmolested glass houses. I have to determine, as rapidly as possible, Peeta's purpose in taking flight again: a deliberate walk to death, purposefully walking into pods? A careful flight from the rebellion - keeping to the cleared streets in order to stay alive, but out of the clutches of 13? Or a purposeless, hijacking-induced scramble out into the streets where death might come randomly or might not? After some musing, I realize I can only safely assume the second; I have to follow the cleared streets, looking for signs of his safe passage. Though signs are few on the crumpled pavement.

I turn around impatiently when I hear footsteps behind me, but it's just Cressida and Pollux, Cressida holding a map and Pollux hurrying forward to help guide me. "It looks like he went down cleared streets?" Cressida asks.

I nod an assent I hope looks convincing, then glance at the map Cressida brought with her. It's a printout of the Capitol streets with some information from the holo added - locations of pods, although not specific, and potentially out-of-date. Thinking about the last time I had to track him down, I ask her, "is there anywhere near here - like a park? With trees or something?"

"Yeah!" she says, surprised. "A little more that way … do you think Peeta took a map with him?"

I shake my head. "I don't know, it's just a hunch."

We turn right, but not at once - we wait until we find a street that looks like it was cleared, then turn down it, heading right toward a smudge of trees. I curse myself and just hope that, against the odds, Peeta has not managed to blow himself up on the streets of the Capitol ...

"There!" says Cressida suddenly. The rest of her sentence is drowned out by a burst of shellfire - it sounds quite near. And I see him, just hunched down in the middle of the street, covering his head with his arms. Knowing he will probably bolt as soon as he sees us - that he's probably half out of his mind from the sounds of it all - I pick up my speed and I do not call out to him until he finally looks up and sees me.

"Mellark! Soldier Mellark! Peeta! Freeze!"

To my surprise, he obeys me and we run up to close in around him - though I'm the only one with a weapon, and it's not even drawn. Breathing hard, I put a hand on his head - his hair is wet with sweat - but he brushes it away.

"What - the - fuck," I manage to say between gulps of air. But there's very little recognition in the face that is turned upward.

"Come on, Peeta," says Cressida, sounding a lot less winded. "We'll go with you - to the trees, OK? We don't have to go back yet."

But it's Pollux who Peeta is looking at. I don't understand the expression - I don't understand what Pollux is saying to him with his fingers, just that Peeta seems to understand it - or, if not understand it, then at least to be paying close attention to it. Of course, I realize. It's quiet, this kind of speech, and the motion of the fingers almost hypnotic. Almost calming.

I reach my hand down to Peeta and he takes it and lifts himself up. "I -." he begins. Then he is interrupted by more shelling and I can feel his hand clench - hard - down on mine. Not quite to the point of pain, but certainly to the point of desperation.

Cressida looks back towards camp and bites her lip. "You don't happen to have a communicator in your pack," she says to me.

I shake my head.

"Well, they are going to flip out back at camp, but …. Just for a second, let's just go over to the park and figure out what's next."

"You guys could go back and let Boggs know..."

Cressida laughs. "No." She looks from me to Peeta. "Sorry, Peeta - it's for your protection as well as ours."

"I understand," he replies, hoarsely. He relaxes his grip and releases me. All of a sudden his eyes are clear and he looks at me. "Still hunting me, Katniss?"

I shrug. "This is an odd time and place for an evening stroll."

The park, as it turns out, is like nothing I've ever seen before. There are scattered trees, a still lake - gazebos and pagodas - a small amphitheatre. Even an enclosure - the gates are locked but we can see within it the cages for animals. Cressida calls it a zoo. It feels like we have stepped out of the war - out of the Capitol - out of Panem, even - and entered a tranquil little world, almost - but not quite - natural. There are birds singing, evening birds, in the tall trees. I don't know if it's giving Peeta the peace of mind he craves, but it is certainly calming for me.

Cressida takes the lead and we go to a small structure near the zoo - it's like a house, but there are only a couple of mostly-empty rooms. I sit Peeta down against the wall and sit myself some yards away, my bow drawn. Cressida looks around the room and tests the various telephones, but none of them are working.

"It's OK," I say, without any real conviction. "Boggs will figure out we went after Peeta and that we'll be back soon enough."

"We'll be in trouble," says Cressida.

"We're not soldiers," I reply with a shrug. "Peeta and I are actors and you're our camera crew."

"I'm sure that's how Coin will see it," Cressida says, rolling her eyes.

I'm only concerned about Haymitch, really, and even that not so much. This - I think - is the perfect time, the perfect chance. ALL I have to do is evade Cressida and Pollux. "Can I see that map?" I ask Cressida, and she hands it over. As easy as that.

"How long do you want to stay?" she asks me.

I look over at Peeta, as if weighing his mental stability with my eyes. "I don't know. A little longer."

"It's getting dark," says Cressida. "Peeta, are you -."

"Not yet," he says tightly, looking at me. "You _shouldn't_ have come for me."

Outside, we hear more shelling, but it's muffled beyond the walls. I watch Peeta's face - the evening shadows conceal most of it, but I watch him squeeze his eyes tight, then, slowly, relax his face. He takes deep, deliberate breaths in … out … in.

"It might not be a good idea to go back to camp tonight," I say. "The shelling sounds close."

Cressida sighs. "Well - what the hell do I care, anyway? You're right, Katniss. You're in charge. There's usually a kitchen in these rec centers. I'm going to see if anything has been left behind."

That night, I take first watch and plan my exit strategy. Which is basically to wake Cressida in a couple of hours, pretend to go outside to go to the bathroom and then make my way up the Capitol streets. I've removed the Mockingjay armor and have replaced it with gray fatigues. It's as close as I have to civilian clothes and hopefully I can flit anonymously through the Capitol, penetrate Snow's mansion and kill him before I'm taken and killed.

In the meanwhile, I stare at the boy for whom I am making these dark and restless plans. Well - the boy who replaced the boy for whom I am making these plans. And he occasionally looks at me, and sometimes he frowns. Sometimes he merely looks puzzled.

"If you take me back, I'll just leave again, as soon as I can. They can't hold me forever."

"I know," I say, startling myself. "I'm not taking you back."

His sharp silence is distrustful, his eyes look up at me in sudden fear. "You're going to kill me," he says.

This stings, despite the fact that I should have expected it. "No. No."

He wriggles unhappily. "Why not just let me go?"

"Go? Go where? Into the heart of the war? Outside the Capitol? And live on what? You brought nothing with you - no food, not even a water bottle. What exactly is your plan?"

"No plan. I just had to get away." He looks at the ground. "From you."

I swallow, feel myself turn hot at the roots of my hair. Well. Not flattering, but it perhaps shouldn't surprise me. "Your - disgust at my proximity shouldn't override basic concerns about -."

"It's not that."

I wait, reaching out to pick at the cracking leather of my boot. After a few minutes pass, and he's offered no more, I clear my throat. "What is it, then? Why just walk out into danger?"

He looks up. "Do you think - I like the person that I've become? The things I've done - the things I've said to you? There never was a future - for the person I used to be - that didn't include you, somehow. So this thing - where I can't - where I can't …" He shakes his head.

I sigh in frustration. If he says things like this … if he _means_ things like this … how can I just leave without knowing if this is the beginning of a change in him - a real and genuine change? "You haven't given your recovery much time," I say, surprised to find myself offering him the hope that I have given up on myself.

"It doesn't matter. I can't even tell - what's real or what isn't. What I know one day is completely untrue the next. That … isn't really liveable."

My heart softens a little at this. I think of Haymitch's pleas to me - to try to understand that there are very few people in the world who can truly help this boy recover any part of who he used to be. And of these few, I am the chief one. So - I do it. I try to imagine myself in his place. Not sure if the person looking at me wants to kiss or kill me. Not sure who the enemy is - Snow or the Rebellion. Unable to trust anything I think I know because I have been told - over and over - that everything I know is false. "I know you don't trust me," I say. "But you could always ask. Whatever you are not sure is - real."

His doubt is naked on his face. "I wouldn't even know - where to start."

"Well - when you're ready," I tell him, trying to infuse my voice with the gentleness I want to feel.

"Oh." He stretches and then looks at me with a troubled expression. He shakes his head, spasmodically. "No - no," he says. "You're trying to trick me - to make me trust you."

I watch him, resisting the urge to go to him and stop his shaking head with my hands. "No, not to trick you. I'm being honest with you. But of course I want you to trust me. You did before."

"And I - I got hurt," he says, his voice thinning.

I nod. "I know. I know you did. I'd give anything. _Anything_."

But I have no more words. Nor does he. Night falls on us - me stone still, watchful and sad. He - shaking and shallow and fighting off phantoms. After some time has passed, I move closer to him and just reach out toward him, hoping I can somehow calm him. He puts me so in mind of an injured animal that I can't help it.

But: "Don't," he says. "Please, don't. Not right now."

So I go outside for a while, treading softly and looking up at the stars, which always seem both larger and colder in the winter. When I go back inside, I'm hoping to find him sleeping, so I can wake Cressida and slip away. But he's still awake, completely still now, as if my absence has relaxed him. I inwardly sigh and return to my position across the room from him, propping myself up against a wall.

"Katniss?" he asks, his voice soft, but cleaner and clearer now than it was before. Something is in it of his old voice. "Where are we going?"

I smile at the darkness. "Home. Eventually." A partial truth. He _could_ go back home.

"Home? What do you mean? Twelve? I thought that it was … destroyed."

"Not all of it. They didn't touch Victors' Village."

After a pause: "Of course," he says, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Of course they didn't. Won't 13 be able to find us there?"

"So, what?" I ask him, opening my eyes, wide. It's interesting that even now it is 13 that he still distrusts the most. "In 13 - they own us. We are citizens and therefore soldiers. In 12, we are our own. We don't have to do what they say."

"It's been a long time," says Peeta thoughtfully, "since no one 'owned' us. If ever, really."

"Yes, oh yes," I reply. "But we have never made it easy for them, have we?"

"Guess not," he says, with a definite lightness to his tone.

Fuck. _Fuck_ , I think to myself. Then I wake up Cressida, hand her my bow, and throw myself on the ground to fall asleep until morning.

I wake in the very early morning, with the light still silvery-gray and cool. I tap Cressida on the shoulder, then go outside to bathe in the light and listen to the good-morning calls of the birds. For a moment, I have a strange feeling of happiness. I feel very far away from everything right now - my personal problems, my thirst for vengeance, the dangers and the emotional stability of the boy all like distant concerns, hardly worth noticing. But that is a state I can only indulge for a very short time.

"Well, I don't know about you all," says Cressida, handing me back my bow when I rejoin everyone. "But I can use some breakfast. Are we ready to go back and face the wrath of Boggs?"

I open my mouth - with no clear idea about what I'm going to say, but Peeta beats me to it. "No," he says.

Cressida sighs. "Ah - look - ah …."

"It's not just me," he says and, though somewhat cold, his voice is rational and calm. "Katniss has no intention of going back."

"What?" I splutter.

"There wasn't any reason not to go back last night," he says. "And no real reason to take the map."

I gape at him. "Well, I -."

"And I'm not going back, either. I'll - stay here or whatever, find an empty apartment to hole up in. I can't do it anymore."

"Katniss?" says Cressida, looking at me with a curious expression. "What is it you intend?"

I shake my head, trying not to glare at Peeta. "To head to the City center. To Snow's mansion. To kill Snow."

She laughs. "Next time, warn me when you're going to say something like that - I'll have the cameras on. OK, and what's your plan?"

"Peeta's breakout forced me to make my move earlier than I intended, but I can't not take this opportunity. You should go back to camp. Tell Boggs whatever you need - that I was killed by a pod or you couldn't find me - whatever you think will distract him and his people. I just need time."

Cressida frowns at me. "That map is not the most accurate predictor of pods."

"As much as I can, I'm going to try to follow the cleared streets behind the military. Once past the evacuated zones, the pods have to be shut off, right?"

"Hopefully," says Cressida, doubtfully. She looks over at Pollux and they stare at each other for a moment, as if reading each other's minds. "We should come with you, Katniss."

"No. It's too risky. This is my - mission."

"Mission?" asks Cressida doubtfully. She squints at me, and I hold my stance. Not that it matters - if it sounds official or not; maybe it will help persuade her to lie to Boggs, though. "And ours is to film you fighting the Capitol. So …."

"I need you to take Peeta back to camp. He is the designated star of the propos. I just came along to - get to the Capitol."

"I can't go back to camp," Peeta says stubbornly. "I'm constantly - constantly on the edge of … madness there."

"Well, you can't come with me," I say. "Things are going to get worse, not better, where I'm going. And you can't 'hole up' in an apartment. If they find you and take you back to Snow …."

"I won't give away your mission."

"That's not what I was talking about," I tell him, half-angrily. "Snow doesn't get to touch you again. Period."

He looks at me now, with a puzzled expression. "I'll kill myself before I let them take me. If one of you leaves me one of those nightlock pills."

He's talking about the little purple suicide pills we've been given, in case of capture. The rebels have called them nightlock in honor of the near-double-suicide that started this whole mess. I, in fact, have two. One in the arm of my 13 uniform; one in the arm of my mockingjay outfit. But I have none to spare for Peeta. I shake my head. "You've been far too interested in your own death, lately."

He and I stare at each other across the room. His expression is stubborn, exasperated, angry - and sad, so completely bleak and sad. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with him.

"Look," says Cressida, suddenly. "If we can get past the evacuation zone, I can get us to one of Plutarch's safe houses, and we can leave him there."

"What?" I gasp. "What do you mean - safe houses?"

She reaches out for the map and I hand it to her. "I mean - locations where sympathizers are housed. Most of them are part of the Games' network - people Plutarch has recruited over the years, stylists like Cinna; game techs, escorts, broadcasters. Sympathetic to the cause - mostly people who pass on messages or codes, stuff like that - but unknown to the Capitol, so they are not in any immediate danger. Not from the Capitol and - hopefully - not from the Rebellion, as long as Plutarch has passed along the information to them. The closest one probably isn't too far from here. We stayed near the train station when we escaped the Capitol. Pollux, do you remember?"

Pollux takes the map and frowns at it.

"He has a great sense of direction," Cressida tells me. "After he was made an Avox, he worked in the underground levels for five years while his family saved up to buy him out. Didn't see the sun once in all that time. He can almost sense directions."

I look at Pollux in horror. Cressida speaks of his torment almost casually, as if it is quite common. Which I suppose it is here. This is one of those rare occasions in which I bless my harsh - but relatively humane - upbringing in District 12. After a while I notice that Peeta is staring at Pollux with a similar expression. His jaw tightens and I can see it again - the anger, the need to lash out, break free of the memories of the torture that was inflicted on him. I pray the shells are quiet this morning.

Once our destination is settled, I distribute some emergency rations from my pack and then take Peeta out so he can go to the bathroom, at arrow point. After he's done, there's a moment when he reemerges from the bushes and stands before me - the arrow between us as it was at the end of the first games. There's a wry - but also almost wistful - look on his face in the moment before I lower the bow.

"Why do you think it's your job?" he asks me. "To kill Snow?"

I grimace. "Whose job do you think it should be? Coin's? It's my job because - because of District 12. And because of you. Well - not you, but the person you used to be, anyway. And because Coin doesn't get to sit back on her heels and watch the Games - send me out to shout people off to their deaths - send you here to let you lose whatever's left of your mind - spare 13 through all this until she marches in at the very end to take the credit. No. Snow's life belongs to me."

"That - that almost makes sense," Peeta says softly.

I let that pass. "If Cressida is telling the truth - and if this safe house is intact - it's perfect, or as close to perfect as we can hope. We can get you away from the line, away from the cameras. What you do after this is all over is up to you, but - I hope Haymitch can help you, then. Just - you might want to lie low for awhile, even after the war is over."

"Why's that?"

"It's Coin, I - I'm not sure anyone with a Victor's pedigree is her cup of tea. Especially popular victors - like us. This might sound funny, but - I think she's desperately jealous of people who are popular. Even from her own people, she gets respect - but not love. Anyone who might pose a threat to her power, outside the bounds of 13 where she has total control …."

"Are you sure? How do you know …?"

I glance behind me to make sure we're still alone. " _You_ told me. Find out about the people you're working with. And I did. At least I think I did. I watched her spar with Plutarch. She finds him a threat and he doesn't even want to take Snow's place after all this is over."

"What are you saying? That she thinks someone like me - or you - will want to? That's almost too funny to be pathetic."

"Or support someone else. We might have influence; if you endorsed someone else - people might take that seriously."

"You mean - the person I used to be," he replies sarcastically. But he looks at me thoughtfully. "So what you're saying is … if I died here, or got caught on camera going … mutt or something … that that would take care of a problem she thinks she has. And you …?"

"She didn't want me to come here in the first place. She'd rather see the Mockingjay fade away, out of everyone's consciousness. That's why they rarely dress me up in the costume for the propos. It may be a little less inspiring, and that suits her purpose. Or if I die here - a martyr for her cause …." Or if you kill me, I add to myself, silently. Two birds with one stone. Sick, twisted. The star-crossed lovers story serving its political purpose right to the very sinister end.

"I want to believe you," he says. "I want to trust you. It seems like there's no one to trust anymore." He sighs, runs his hand through his hair and I can see the debate raging in his head. "OK," he says. "What do you want me to do?"

Do? That one's easy. "Stay alive," I tell him.


	16. Sweet in the Reliving

Sweet in the Reliving

* * *

"Watch Peeta," I mutter to Cressida and Pollux, as I fit a second arrow to my bow. The first one set off a violently explosive pod, and we have no idea what the next will bring.

This is an inefficient way to sweep an intersection, wasting my arrows on pod elimination, but we've run out of cleared streets. What we are left with are abandoned streets with ill-defined threats at every turn. Having nearly run afoul of a dart-throwing shop display two streets down, I'm in no mood to take chances with potentially unlabelled threats.

But the rest of the arrows yield no more surprises, so we walk cautiously through into the intersection. I make Peeta walk in front - he's shaking again with the uptick in the noises. Something I guess I'll never know now - is it even possible that he can be cured of this specific trauma? Does he just need time - or is this always going to be part of him now? At times he seems focused, controlled. But I get the definite feeling that the self-control is maintained with every ounce of his energy. Once that is sapped ….

A rush behind me interrupts my thoughts. I turn around and see a wave of black liquid bubbling out of the sewage grates. The smell makes me gag and I scream to the others to just run. We've clearly set off another unmarked pod. But Peeta freezes and, as I pass him, I can actually feel the contraction of his muscles from twelve inches away. Not now, damn it, I think, and Cressida and Pollux grab him by his arms and lead him resisting away. Too slow.

"Here!"

I make for one of the empty apartment buildings and we run inside, just as the black substance has reached the sidewalk. After a moment of arguing, Pollux finally lifts Peeta up and struggles up the stairs with him. We climb - two, three, four, five, six floors. My chest is burning through both lack of breath and the smell of whatever is bubbling up from the gutters. Finally, I kick open an apartment door and we rush inside, me holding back puke as I grab some coats off a rack and stuff them into the cracks of the door. Cressida takes an electric cord and ties Peeta's wrists and ankles together.

"Cover your faces," I say, going over to the windows that look over the street. I see that we've climbed plenty high enough, but I'm not sure how we are going to get back out of here - the goo is almost two stories high. But as I watch, it begins to recede, leaving behind just a black film over the block. So we're not blocked in - but it was clearly poisonous and I wonder when and if it will be safe to breathe the air outside, or touch the leftover substance. But for now ….

"Pollux, thank you," I say, nodding toward Peeta, who is in a state of collapse on the couch. Then I look around, taking in the surroundings. It's a lovely little apartment, with a style of furnishing not dissimilar to that of the Training Center. There's a thick carpet, soft, blue-green couches, paintings on the wall, vases on the side tables and an odd collection of lamps everywhere. The room is open to the kitchen. "Cressida," I say, "can you find some food?"

While Cressida rounds up an armful of canned food, I make a rapid search of the rest of the apartment to make sure we are alone. When I return, Peeta is sitting up on the couch as Pollux carefully unbinds him. We sit in a circle on the living room floor to eat. Peeta doesn't look at me as he hands me a can from the pile. Lamb stew. I stare at the label for a long time, a prey to memories that should be, at best, mixed, yet now seem almost sweet in the reliving: Peeta and me, alone in a cave, the sound of dripping rain a soundtrack to our isolation - and to the strange, newborn sensations. Like rivulets of water running over me, tickling and caressing - the quick jolt of pleasure down my back just when he spoke to me - the words I half-thought were lies:

 _And right when your song ended, I knew I was a goner._

The momentary flash of pain at the separation of the bodies - a kiss ended too soon. _Again_. But no - _everything_ that was real and natural between us cut off by the very Games that forced us together in the first place. Again and again and again.

"Thank you," I tell him, looking up and wondering if he remembers.

 _I remember everything about you. You were the one who wasn't paying attention._

Even if he does remember, I remind myself, it's not really true for him anymore. I have to stop fooling myself that when I look up and see something familiar in his face it means anything. And we _weren't_ alone. All of Panem was with us in that cave and we were merely the entertainment for a hungry crowd, a perpetually hungry populace.

And as I eat, it is the arena I taste again, and I remember the fear and confusion; that feeling of being pretty fucking sure you are about to die, and that it can come from anywhere at any time. That even the person sitting next to you - protecting you, kissing you, staring at you with rapt affection - cannot wholly be trusted because the game is the game. Costumes, innuendo, pretty speeches describing horrible things. Warped priorities. Waiting to hear the cannon and dreading to hear the cannon and tallying up the dead because the growing pile of corpses - as long as you are not included - means your life and your freedom and it's all so twisted that sometimes I wish I had the benefit of Peeta's excuse of madness - so that I, too, could randomly stop in the street and scream and scream. Because nothing matters except that everything is awful.

And right when your song ended ….

"Now what?" asks Cressida as the lights in the room suddenly flicker and the television set on the wall opposite the kitchen turns on abruptly, with the familiar sound of the Panem horns, the anthem of the dead, blaring throughout the apartment.

It's just a news bulletin, with a status update on the war. Although they try to put a defiant face on it all, there is no question things are still not going well for the Capitol. There are more blocks to be evacuated and the three lines of fighting they have identified moving up toward the City Center from the train station seem to be moving unopposed. The only pushbacks available are the Gamemaker pods, but you can't kill off an entire army with these things; nor can you incite terror in soldiers with the things they have watched - the monsters, the fire bombs, the bloody rain - kill their loved ones for three generations. We're all pretty fucking numb to it now.

The only bad luck is mine - Cressida confirms that the safe house toward which we've been running is now in an evacuation zone; we'll have to go even further in.

And then there's this: the newscast ends with a note that a new Star-Crossed Lovers propo has failed to air today, adding fuel to the rumors that Peeta and I were killed yesterday in the heavy shelling that hit the rebel base. They have some street-camera footage of me running with Cressida and Pollux, looking very frantic. At first, I'm only worried about Boggs and Finnick and wonder if the camp really did get hit. But Peeta, who is watching the broadcast intensely, says, "If they are monitoring the pods and the cameras around here, they might be closing in on us even now."

I gasp. How foolish I was not to think about it! I jump up and over to the windows, looking down at the street fully expecting to see a troop of Peacekeepers flooding the intersection. Cressida and Pollux have a heated conversation with their hands. "I think that goo might have covered the cameras," I say, hopefully. "So even if they know we were here, they might not know specifically which building we entered."

"Yes, that's true," Cressida replies, "but we can't wander around here. You can be sure they are looking for you, Katniss, to confirm that you're dead. When they find out a pod was triggered in this area…."

"We need to get ahead of them," I say, and start throwing cans in my backpack. "I just hope the air is safe."

"Maybe that's what's holding them back," says Peeta.

"Look, I've had another idea," Cressida says, with a side glance at Pollux. "It's not perfect. There are still some cameras, some pods - though Pollux will know how to avoid him from his time down there. If we go through the access tube in this building, we can get down - to the underground. There's a transport tunnel that runs in a grid, just like the City; but also, some side tunnels and shafts - service corridors and maintenance tubes - that we can use to get deeper into the City."

I look over at Pollux and see his deep reluctance - most likely indicating his unwillingness to go back down to the place where he was trapped for five years without the sun. And the reluctance on his face has its twin in my heart. I deeply fear being underground, of being buried under rock and soil. In some respects, it's an irrational fear, tied in with my father's death in the mines. But for other reasons, the fears are genuine: escape in such a place would be more difficult. Enemies would feel closer. And our only weapons are my arrows, missiles meant for long-range combat. This could be foolish.

"You and Pollux should leave me now," I say, firmly. "Things are getting …."

"Don't be absurd," Cressida retorts. "To head back is to possibly walk right into the Peacekeepers' arms. The safest thing at this point is getting to Tigris'."

"How do we get underground?" I ask, gritting my teeth.

Cressida translates from Pollux about going to an apartment close to the elevator. There, in place of a second bathroom, should be a service closet with a ladder that goes down to the underground transport level, called the Transfer. I nod anxiously, all my instincts screaming against this plan. Then Peeta clears his throat.

"Re-tie my hands," he says, calmly.

"You'll be slower and more vulnerable," argues Cressida.

"Re-tie my hands," he responds, less calmly, this time. "This isn't a request! I begged you to leave me behind, but I'm not asking now. I won't leave here unless you do it. Trust me on this. We have enough problems coming at us from the outside. We don't need them from the inside, too."

"Do it," I say to Cressida.

"Don't look at me like that, Katniss," Peeta says to me. "I can't help what's going on with me. Don't you think I would if I could?"

"I know, I-"

But Pollux starts to frantically tap on the window and Cressida gasps at what he tells her. "They're here," she says. "Peacekeepers - and some tanks. We've got to get out of here." She tugs at the bit of cord she is retying around Peeta's wrists and then we take off. We run through a hallway to the elevators, then bust into the apartment next to them. Pollux leads us to a closet that, as described, has a ladder cutting through the middle of it. Cressida and I make Peeta follow Pollux, and his objections are lost in the sound of an explosion so massive it shakes the building. And then a second one.

As soon as we reach the transfer, Pollux makes for a metal door that is on the other side of the underground street and we streak across it, shielding our faces with our hands as best as we can - although anyone watching any footage, if it's available, will not have a hard time guessing our identities. Something to worry about later. How long, I wonder, after they try to finish us off by blowing up the block, will they then check the underground cameras? If they're smart, they are doing it simultaneously, so the sooner Pollux gets us lost among the unmapped corridors, the better.

This is easier said than done - as usual. The service tunnels don't follow the straight line of the streets. Nor can we traverse them at leisure. Pollux has to keep checking the time and hoping that what he remembers of shifts and assignments is still valid. When the cores change at 6pm, we spend an hour huddled together in a tiny room filled with circuit breakers and gauges before we can be sure that everyone is back in place.

After that ordeal is finished, we hustle out and come to the mouth of a very large and somewhat noisome pipe - this is an overflow for the sewage system. We're both anxious to continue and somewhat hesitant to continue and in the dim orange light I can see the barely-controlled panic on Pollux's face. Cressida puts a hand on his arm and encourages him to just breathe, we'll be out of this soon, and then Peeta says, "You're our best asset down here" in a voice so gentle, so like his old voice, that I nearly drop the bow that I have been keeping ready in my hands.

The tunnel before us suddenly comes to life with a clanging sound - and the echoes of the clangs - a sound like army of children is beating on pans inside a very large room. It could be anything. A creaky pipe. A dropped tool. A rabid mutt. Impossible to know.

"Let's go," I say, swallowing compulsively. "Pollux, can you find us somewhere safe to spend the night at the end of this? I'm dead on my feet."

In the darkness of the tunnel, we have nothing but a camera light to shine our way. Our footsteps echo badly - it would be hard to know if we were approached from behind or above and I keep looking back over my shoulder for any sign of a chase. I can only hope that they have accepted our deaths - at first I consider this a mixed blessing, imagining the sorrow this news will bring to the people I love; but then, that was to be my fate here, anyway. I never intended to go back. In fact, the earlier they mourn, the better.

When we exit the tunnel, I gulp down in relief the stale, warm, sweat-smelling air of the transfer. Then Pollux, after spinning around to get his bearings, leads us to another small service room. Not quite as small as the last one, but we are all still pretty snug together when we sit down and pass around cans of stew and soup.

I glance surreptitiously at Peeta while he eats. There is a blinking green light in here that keeps highlighting the contours of his face, on and off, making it look bruised around the hollow places.

I take first watch that night and still I keep looking over at him, perfectly still in the semi-darkness, his eyes wide open but his face without expression. Between the sickly light and his unnatural stillness, I am strangely uneasy.

"Your favorite color," he says suddenly, "is green. Is that real?"

"Yes, that's real," I say. Then, because it's clear he's taken me at my word, finally, and has decided to trust in my information, I add the rest of it. "And - yours is orange."

He frowns. "Orange?"

"Yes, not bright orange, but soft - like the sunset. At least, that's what you told me once."

He closes his eyes as if envisioning it. I watch him, holding my breath, because this memory matters so much more than it would appear on the surface. It's that day - on the train - when we finally talked to each other again after all those months of silence. After that there would be kisses on the stages, arms wrapped around each other at night. His loyalty and love in the months at home. This was the first step on the road that would eventually lead to the night in the Capitol.

"Thank you," he finally says. "You never really answered me before - how you know these things about me."

"One time you told me that you remembered everything about me. And that I was not paying attention."

"Ye-ah..."

"But you were wrong. I was. I did. I just didn't realize it at the time. I'm not like you. Being close to a person does not come naturally to me. People creep up on me, after a long time of me not actively paying attention. But how do I know those things about you? Because a part of me _was_ paying attention, even when I didn't realize it. You … mattered to me." And he did - I just don't have the words to tell him. If Gale was food and water, he was - sustenance and light. He was everything I thought I'd lost when my father died. But I don't know how to express these things out loud.

He averts his eyes, his lips pursed in clear disbelief. "I was just the side game," he says. "To Haymitch, to Gale, to the Rebellion. I couldn't matter to you. I didn't matter to anything."

"If that was in any way true to anyone, it was because you all had them convinced how great I was. But I knew better." I sigh. "If you don't matter, why did Thirteen risk so much to get you out - for me. Why did I -?" I stop, abruptly. "Look, I know - they changed you. They planted fear and doubt into the memories that once were your happiest. I don't know why - by the way - why you ever really liked me. I wish you hadn't. They'd have left you alone if it had just been all a lie. If it had just been all an act."

"Please - _stop_. You don't have to spare my feelings," he says stubbornly.

 _I'm not_ , I start to say. And then, instead, "Yes, I do. Whether you like it or not - whether I like it or not - you are fragile; you are damaged. Perhaps one day we will be able to hash it all out - everything you're angry at me for, everything I'm angry at you for - fair or not fair. But for now … I'll tell you no lies, but I will not tell you anything to hurt you, no matter how much you goad me. Of course I'm going to spare you. Of course I'm going to _protect_ you. All of you. That's what we do, Peeta."

"That's what we do," he replies softly, hoarsely - the sentence almost lilting up at the end into a question, but not before settling into a statement - of agreement, almost.

When I smile at him, he doesn't smile back, but his face relaxes and the hollow places seem less hollow, the bruised places seem less bruised. Part of me wants to keep on talking. This, finally, is starting to get somewhere. But I sigh. "You should get some sleep," I tell him. "While there's still time."


	17. Pearl-Sized

Pearl-Sized

* * *

"Where are we?"

Cressida puts a finger on her lips and pushes tentatively on the door. "Safe house," she whispers.

I know that. But it's not what I was expecting. We're in a quiet alleyway off the busy streets, at the entrance to a small, dingy shop that apparently sells furs. Mannequins in fur underwear pose listlessly in the grimy shop window. I keep the brim of my camo hat pulled down as much as possible over my eyes, and Peeta slouches, looking down when people stray off the main avenue and pass us. Everyone in the streets, though, is nervous, hurried, too anxious to bother with us - so far.

What I really want to know is where in the Capitol we are. How far from the mansion, how far from the fighting?

The bells softly ring as we step inside. It's dim and musty. It has somewhat the air of the used clothing stalls in The Hob - old furs on racks, the dust visible in the few shafts of light that break through the broken parts of the shades drawn over the windows.

We wend our way through aisles of fur to reach a counter in the back of the store, where sits a lean, vaguely feminine person, watching a small TV that is set in front of her.

"Tigris," says Cressida. "It's Cressida - one of Plutarch's network."

The woman looks up and it takes awhile for all of her to form in my eyes. She's too little like a real human being at first - her face most of all, chiseled and whittled away so that her cheekbones are at first all you can see - then the absence of the nose, flattened down to near vanishing-point - then the presence of the whiskers - then the near-absence of pupils. The fact that she is tattooed with tiger stripes is the least jarring thing about her appearance. Finally, when her face solidifies in my eyes, she speaks in a low growl.

"Cressida. I thought you were dead."

"Not yet. Look, we need to hide out here for a bit."

The woman flicks her yellow eyes to me and Peeta. Then, she turns around with a gesture to follow her to the back room behind the counter. There, she moves a clothes rack and uncovers a door in the floor. I'm almost still too fascinated by her to panic at the thought of trusting another Capitolite to lead me back underground.

"You - were a stylist, weren't you? In the Games. I remember …. Did Snow ban you?" I look at her now; her excessively tortured face - it was being remarked upon with laughter even during her last years in the Games when I was a kid - but the face that she chose for herself. Whether she went too far or not is not for me to say. What matters now is that she was rejected, banished, her Capitol privileges rescinded, and there is hatred in her heart - hatred for Snow. That is all that matters now. Because if this is true, I can trust her with far more surety than just by her place in "Plutarch's network." "Because - I'm going to kill him, you know."

And I see in her face - in the glint in her eyes - that what I suspected is exactly correct, and I swallow my worry and venture down into her hidden basement.

It's dark and noisome - there are old furs down here, too, and the smell of them is concentrated in the small space. I feel a small chain hit my face about halfway down the stairs and reach up and yank it, turning on a watery light from a single bulb in the ceiling. It does its best to illuminate a dank room with an earth floor, brick walls, piles of moldy pelts. On the bright side, there is a water faucet on one wall. After our run through the tunnels - barely avoiding several pods and trying to blend in with a shift of Avoxes we ran into in our haste to get back above ground - we're dehydrated, as well as starving. Pollux and Cressida are already taking turns at the faucet while I frown down at Peeta's bound wrists.

"They're getting red. Is it too tight?"

"No," he says, hoarsely. "It just helps if I - strain against them. The pain - brings me focus."

Shit, I think, staring at his face. His eyes are turned down from me. "Well, I've got some first aid in my pack. We need to untie you for a bit - clean those up. They could get infected, and - ."

"I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss, even if my mother isn't a healer."

My mouth quirks involuntarily up in what feels like half-grin, half-frown. "You said that to me in the first Games. Real or not real."

He looks up and those blue eyes - it's too dim to see if they are really as true and natural as they should be - bore into mine. "Real," he responds. "And - you risked your life getting the medicine that saved me?"

"Real." I look down and shrug. "You were the reason I was alive to do it."

"Was I?" I can hear the shiver in his voice again. I can feel the strain of his body against the competing memories, the false and the true. I wait for it to break, one way or another - anger, accusations. But he just sighs, and his entire body relaxes as he says, "I'm so tired, Katniss."

I make him sit while I loosen his restraints, bring him water and clean his wrists. Then, after a brief argument with him over the necessity for it, I reluctantly tie him to the staircase and watch him try to get comfortable. But he finds a position to lie down in and falls asleep with surprising rapidity.

I look to Cressida, eager to discuss with her where we are, what our next plan is, who should start the first watch. But her exhaustion and Pollux's are as palpable as Peeta's. Cressida's eyes are drooping where she sits. And Pollux - finally free of the ordeal of the underground excursion - looks like he is sleepwalking.

"Let's just sleep," I say. "They don't seem to be hunting us now, if Tigris thinks we're dead. And we'd be of no use anyway, trying to fight off Peacekeepers. Not without rest."

We make beds out of the pelts and, sure they are musty and a little damp, but they are so comfortable after the last couple of days. I relax into the furs as if falling asleep in someone's arms, and I'm out like a light until morning.

Morning brings a moment of relief - a second where I feel nothing but refreshed and happy to no longer be on the run. But that just makes the let-down of the next second even more painful. I'm just that much closer now to my final moments, which may or may not - but probably won't - include victory over Snow. I'll need to leave Peeta in this strange place, deep in the heart of the Capitol, all on his own. And I'll need to somehow shake Cressida, who has been stubbornly pursuing me with her cameras since District 8, regardless of any danger to herself.

Peeta is sitting up, staring at his hands; Cressida and Pollux eating from cans and speaking silently together. I look at them and sigh. "Have you eaten?" I ask Peeta, and he nods.

"So," Cressida says, while I still hesitate over exactly what to say, "what's next?"

I pull out a can of stew and open it, keeping my eyes down and my thoughts hidden. "How far away are we from Snow?"

"Matter of five blocks," she replies, pulling out a map, and I gasp. She points to our position on the map and we are laughably close to the City Circle. Her fingertip nearly fits in the gap between Tigris' shop and Snow's mansion.

"No pods here, I'm guessing."

"No - but plenty of Peacekeepers."

"And no way to infiltrate the mansion," adds Peeta. "It has to be heavily guarded."

"If we could somehow lure him out," I insist, "I could shoot him from one of these buildings. The rooftop of the Training Center, say …."

"I could be the bait," Peeta says, very quietly. I can't tell if he's asking or offering or just speculating. But I quickly move to dispel that notion.

"No," I say. "You're staying here. As promised."

I look to him for confirmation, but he only purses his lips.

"Maybe," Cressida says, "he goes out into these back gardens. You might be able to target him from there."

I try not to laugh. There's no way Snow could be that exposed. If his back yard was visible from the rooftops - and I'm sure it wasn't from the Training Center, upon which I spent my fair share of time - he wouldn't go out there. He's the snake - the consummate survivor. Too many people have paid - too many people have died - for him to make costly mistakes with his own life now. Perhaps I'm the only one who could lure him out of his pit. A thought worth pinning.

But I say, "I wonder if it isn't worth it getting there just to at least scope out what we can see from the roof. Cressida - do you know - is anyone actually _there_ when the Games aren't in session?"

She frowns. "There is permanent staff - Avoxes, mainly. They live in the underground levels, where the medical unit is. You know - where they take you after the Games. They keep the place clean. Sometimes, people in the Capitol on business might stay there. They like to - you know - see the place where the Tributes stay. I think Snow charges them a fortune …."

"But if there have been evacuations," says Peeta, "might not some evacuees be housed there?"

"Oh - it's possible, yes."

I grit my teeth in frustration. The truth is - I feel the need to get closer to Snow. It's a compulsion. I'm restless sitting here, while he breathes the air. But - I know I can't walk up to the doors of the mansion and let myself in. Perched in a nest, in the air with the birds, my arrows trained on my prey - this feels like the right and natural way for me to end it - as if I've been training for it my entire life. I can visualize myself, picking him out on that balcony in front of the mansion, from which he likes to make pronouncements, or on the top of the steps that have served so often as his stage.

"Perhaps there's a way to infiltrate the Center - maybe disguised as evacuees, or even Avoxes. And get to the roof. I might not have the opportunity to shoot him from there, but I might get a sense of how to get into the mansion."

At that point, Tigris startles us by opening the trapdoor and gesturing us from the top of the stairs. "I have food," she murmurs in that low purr of a voice.

We follow her curiously to find she has laid out stale bread and old cheese at a table in the back office of her shop. She insists on us eating it, despite that we tell her we have food. I can't help but trust her - she is clearly lonely and eager both for company and to be of use. Besides, we get to watch TV while eating, and we learn for the first time in days the current status of the war. The Rebellion continues to close in and also to cut into the Capitol news feed. We watch the tanks clear the streets of pods, see some soldiers pursuing Peacekeepers. When the Capitol news feed does return, there are somber warnings to evacuate even more blocks.

An executive order has declared that the houses within a certain radius will be ordered open for refugees escaping the outer neighborhoods. Those who do not volunteer their space will be forcibly assigned evacuees. A second executive order will require the same for shopkeepers and managers of warehouses and storage buildings.

"That might mean you, Tigris," says Peeta, voicing my despair. So much for a safe place to keep him. But it forces the issue. We don't have much longer that we can -.

"And be on the lookout for rebels Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. While thought killed in an earlier bombing, it is now clear that they have escaped and penetrated the city." We gape at the blurry security camera footage of us emerging from the apartment building that was the endpoint of our trip underground. "They are considered armed and highly dangerous."

Damn. Well - that makes things more complicated.

Back in the basement, we go back and forth again on approaching the City Circle, but I just keep thinking about Peacekeepers breaking into Tigris' shop with a family of Capitolites for her to house. Then we'll be trapped down here until the end of the war.

That night, these thoughts and my formless plans for reaching Snow swirl around my brain so that it is hard to fall asleep, and harder to stay asleep. At one point in the night, I wake up and, looking over toward the staircase, catch a glint of light - Peeta's open eyes.

"Can't sleep?" I ask him in a whisper.

He looks at me sharply, then smiles a little and shakes his head.

"Thirsty?"

"Yeah," he says. "Thanks."

I fill a cup and bring it over to him then, since his hands are tied to the staircase, lift the cup to his lips and tilt it up slightly to his waiting mouth. I watch the motion of his throat as he drinks and then, putting the cup down, say, "Are you sure you don't want your hands untied?"

"It's safer this way."

"Eventually," I say wryly, "you're going to have to have free hands."

"Eventually," he says. Then he strains his wrists against the cords, as if the very thought of freedom sets him off. After a very long silence between us, he stirs. "It would be funny," he says, "ending up in the Training Center again."

"Funny?" I say, my nerves on edge. I glance over at the others, but they seem sound asleep. "You - _do you -_ remember …?"

He nods. "At first I thought it must be a dream - or a planted memory. But it's the opposite of that. As time goes on, I remember more about it - not less."

I try to read his expression in the dim light. He gives me no indication - none - if this memory is sweet or bitter or nothing at all to him. I can't think of quite what to say.

"But I still can't understand it. Did you even like - kissing me?" he asks, his voice buried under doubt. "Because - I don't remember what I thought about that night. But when I watched the tapes of the arena, it didn't really look like you did."

I swallow. "Sometimes I did," I say. "Sometimes, yes, it was for show."

He looks up, blinking. "And Gale?"

I shiver. "You know he kissed me."

"That's not what I'm asking."

"With Gale - it wasn't the same. It wasn't remotely the same."

His eyes widen. "But - you love him. I know that's not a lie."

"Of course, I love Gale. Gale is easy: loyal - and - confidant. An open book. That doesn't mean - he's the only person I love. Love," I add, suddenly wanting to convey to him, somehow, the conclusion of days and nights in Thirteen with almost nothing to do but reflect on the state of my relationship with this boy and what it all meant - and what it all means…. But can I actually say it? Am I capable of formulating the words? "Love doesn't work that way, like pieces of bread you scatter around until it's all gone. The more you spread it around, the more there is. It's endless. And sometimes it's both things at the same time - enormous, filling up everything - and also concentrated, hard, like something in the palm of your hand. Pearl-sized and universe-sized at the same time. That's the sort of love that … is hard to explain. I think you knew, once, and I hope that you do again."

"Oh," he says, with a startled tone in his voice, and I realize that I've said just a little too much. But time is running out, and I will never have the chance to say these words again.

My breath hurts, as if I've been running. I'm glad it's too dark for him to really see my face, because it feels like it's glowing red. Trying to relax, I close my eyes again, prepared to drift back off to sleep, but Peeta's suddenly wakeful and talkative.

"About that night - ?"

"Yes?" I say warily.

"Did I - put some kind of pressure on you? To - uh - do it?"

"No," I say. "It was my idea."

"Really?"

"Do we have to talk about it?" I ask, again glancing over at our sleeping companions.

"Sorry - everyone in Thirteen kept trying to make me talk about everything. But I wasn't able to - talk about this."

"Sure," I say, not really understanding what that has to do with anything. "But - what do you want from me, here? A minute-by-minute account? If you remember anything about me at all, you must know that's not really something I can do. Besides - what does it matter? You don't even think I'm pretty, anymore, remember? Let alone desirable," I add, fully aware how petulant it makes me sound.

"Katniss, I -." He stops and pauses for so long that I actually think he's dropped off to sleep. "Katniss, that would not be a forgivable thing for me to say, even if I thought it was true. I was angry, confused …."

"You didn't sound confused."

"Well - I was. Imagine … can you imagine …?" he sighs. "Trying desperately hard not to admit your attraction to what you think might be a - a Capitol mutt? It felt wrong on every level. Perverse."

Oh. I lean back, not sure exactly what to say.

"Anyway," he continues, sounding strained again - perhaps my silence feels judgemental. "With you it wasn't about pretty, was it? I mean, obviously I thought you were. But I've known you since we were kids and - you - have always just been _you_. Maybe that makes it harder to see you in perspective, I don't know. Does it even matter what I think about your looks? That seems so beyond - the point."

Hmm, way to make me feel even more shallow and petty than I already do. "Sure, I guess." But that doesn't feel quite true, so I go ahead and say it: "No - I mean - no. Just once - or just one more time, I guess - I wanted to be someone who isn't owned by the crowds or the cameras. I wanted to feel like the person I might have been if none of this had ever happened. For just a moment - that night - I felt like that and I guess it _is_ beyond the point, but that didn't keep me from needing it. Isn't there a part of you that wanted to feel the same? To remember what it was like not to perform for everyone else? To feel - desired, just for yourself?"

"I don't know - I don't remember what I felt about it. Just that - while I can remember that it happened, it seems so strangely different from anything else that happened between us. It feels - unnatural."

I blink my tired eyelids. "I - guess - that's true. I mean - I guess, apart from all the kissing and sleeping together, we did nothing to lead up to it."

He laughs shortly. "Katniss, I was _there_. All that other stuff was different, and you know it."

I lick my lips. "Not - all of it," I say, hoping the words will ring a bell and that - this time - he will hear the promise in them and not the disappointment.

"Well," he says in a low voice, and I know he does remember. "You never told me. How much."

I part my lips. Of course, that is true. We came home and I let the subject drop. Which was good as saying 'nothing.' "I - it was hard to quantify."

"Was it? Because I'm sure I could have expressed it, somehow."

"Is this really what you want to do right now?" I respond, tightly, clenching my teeth. "Because - I don't know, Peeta, you sure didn't say a word about it - let alone any words to me - the whole time we went to school together. Too embarrassed to talk to a Seam girl in front of your friends? Or really - at a loss for words? Because, either way …."

"You weren't exactly the world's most approachable person. But -" he checks himself. "You're right. I think. I just don't know - I can't tell - I can't remember - why I'm so angry about it all. I think you're right. It was on me, wasn't it? That I didn't talk to you."

"It doesn't really matter," I sigh. "All that is from our past life, before the Reaping. Everything changed then. What we were before the arena … hardly even counts. Everything we did after was to keep the Capitol placated so they wouldn't hurt us or our families. Except the one thing."

"Perhaps that's why I want to remember it," he says.

I snort. "Or maybe you just want something else to resent me for."

"Or maybe - I resent not really remembering - the first time I ever did something huge like that. And with you."

I swallow. "Was it - your first time?"

In the darkness, I can see his head jerk toward me. "As far as I know. Why? Was it not?"

"I don't know. You - seemed to know what you were doing." Something that - several times that night - it was on the tip of my tongue to ask. Except that I didn't want to know.

"Oh." And then he realizes that I am, in a way, giving him a compliment. "Oh! I … well, there's nothing in my head that even hints that I - did it before. I mean - in general - I think I know how it works, I ... did you enjoy it, then?"

"Peeta."

I can almost hear the grin crack his face. "I had to ask."

I shrug. Then I think, _well, why not?_ "Yes. I guess I can't speak for you, but - it didn't happen just once that night."

"I think I remember that there were a couple of …."

"Yeah." More than that, he can work out on his own.

"You sound tired."

"I _am_ tired. And we still don't have a plan for tomorrow. But … if you do - if you need to talk - keep talking."

"No. Just one more thing. In the arena, during the Quell - we kissed - for real. Didn't we?"

"Yes."

"Was that one of the ones that you liked?"

"You said _one_ more thing."

"That's true."

And this time he's obediently quiet. The silence descends around us and I wonder restlessly if it would have been best to give him an answer, to satisfy his curiosity, to jog his memory. But it isn't that simple. That kiss could not be described as merely likeable. It was an unsatisfying kiss. It was a weighted kiss. It was a goodbye kiss. It was a ruinous kiss - forever changing my relationship with Gale and any future he might have imagined he'd have with me; forever changing my idea of what a lover's kiss could and should be. It was the moment I realized that when lust is part of the equation, it completely changes everything you think about what love is. That moment I realized that, sure, love is plentiful to spread around, but there is only one person who gets all of mine at once - even all of the love that was previously reserved for my family and friends. All my love for them and everything - my love of the early morning, of fresh food, of a certain kind of music - all of it concentrated at the same time in one other person. The universe in the palm of my hand.

Did I _like_ it?...


	18. The Last Morning

The Last Morning

* * *

I shiver in the frosty air, my arms wrapped tightly around myself. It's been snowing all day. Snow in my nose, on my eyelids, on my chapped lips. I want nothing more than to get up, start moving around, move my blood, warm my blood. But I won't budge until darkness descends completely. Cressida says the victory at District Two legitimately took out the Capitol's air force, so we won't see flying patrols, but the rooftop is still far too exposed for comfort, especially in the daytime.

I watch the icy stars twinkle forward - more than I'm used to seeing in the Capitol. That's the first thing I look for when I venture up under the cover of the newborn darkness - what has happened to make the stars shine brighter. I practically crawl out of the stairwell onto the roof, slithering across the cold cement to peer furtively over the edge of it. There I can see the dimness - the faint, smoky darkness that has closed in the Capitol in a ring. It's hard not to make the analogy - of death closing in. It gives a thrill - a primitive dark stirring in the soul - to see the grave creep slowly over the city of lights that is built on slavery and torture. Except that I'm in the middle of it - right in the heart of it.

I hear a sound behind me and turn abruptly to see Peeta approaching me, bent down low. The sparkling of the windchimes - the cold sound they make - reminds me that we are in a familiar place. One of the places that looms largely and importantly in our own relationship and in who we are now. Yet, I would burn this place down without the slightest second thought.

Fire would be especially welcome now.

"Look at this," I whisper, gesturing him toward me.

He looks down, straight down to the City Circle itself, which is lit up with fires and flashlights, an enormous refugee camp. Today, evacuees were promised that the mansion itself would open up to them tomorrow, so they came - and we among them. Tigris painted masks on our faces of rouge and eyeliner; wrapped us in fur coats and hoods and boots. The Rebellion, from what we could tell of the competing broadcasts, is no more than a day away from the Mansion. Do I welcome them? Only partially. I want my quarry for myself. And I do not want Peeta, Cressida and Pollux to have to answer for deserting their posts, until all is said and done.

At first, we had the vague thought of getting into the mansion itself along with the refugees. But the sheer volume of people offered both problems and unexpected solutions. There is no telling how many of these people will actually be let into the mansion. A vetting process is inevitable, particularly with me on the loose. But in one of the many waves of pushing and shuffling that happened once we entered the Circle, we managed to break away and Cressida led us to the Training Center after all. She knew the back way - the way the Tributes exit for the interviews - and we rushed up the stairs, all the way to the domed stairwell at the top, blocking the door in case any curious residents or Avoxes decided to check out the roof.

"They're going to be cold tonight," says Peeta.

"Mmm. So are we." And without the benefit of being able to make a fire. I watch the strain of his hands, and I say, "Is it time, yet?"

He's silent for a moment. Then he looks up at me with a smile. "Do you promise to kill me the moment I start to go off?"

"I …. If I have to," I tell him. Though I have a hard time picturing it. When have I ever put my life above his? About as often as he has put his above mine.

He holds out his wrists and I tug at the knots until they come undone. His face looks vaguely worried and I ignore this, returning briskly to strategy once he is free, rubbing his wrists a few times before burying his hands in his fur coat.

"I'm wondering if Snow himself will come out on the steps and make some kind of announcement before letting people in. Risky for him - but - he might decide he needs to look good on camera just now." I think back to Finnick's broadcast and wonder how much of an impact that has had on those loyal to Snow. There must be some people who feel betrayed by him, now, even if they can't openly show it.

"I can see that happening," says Peeta mildly. "And - if not?"

"I'll make my way back down there and try to get in."

"What about your bow? How will you …?"

"I was thinking I'd get some knives - there's some kind of kitchen in this building, right?" I laugh nervously. "If I have to sneak in the mansion to kill him, it's going to have to be up close, anyway."

"I know where the kitchen might be," he says, unexpectedly.

"Really?"

"Yeah - um - do you remember when you shoved me into that vase? Portia took me downstairs for bandages and I saw a service entrance and Avoxes were going back and forth."

"Perfect."

I sit back, low against the wall, and eventually, he joins me. We're close enough that I can feel his body heat, even through the layers we wear, and I almost give in to the comfort of it. For a long time, I consider just staying still and soft and enjoying this silence between us. Peeta's calmness allows me to imagine him the way he used to be - this tiny little delusion I can take with me to my death. I even allow myself to wonder about things I haven't in all this time. Like how Prim is doing, worried about me under the watchful and disapproving eye of President Coin. How Haymitch is doing, trying to answer for our disobedience. How Gale is doing - how he is surviving, fighting in this war, a part of that dark and smoky ring of death encircling us.

And then I remember - the conversation I have to have with Peeta. I owe it to him - although, there's nothing to be done about it now, except feel sad about it. But after I'm dead, he might possibly hear about it from District 13. Who knows how they'll spin my passing?

"Peeta - one more thing," I say unhappily. "About - that night."

He looks to me and I hunch down further into myself. "Yes?"

"There was, in fact, a - a …. Well, I mean, I was - I was pregnant."

"What?" It's barely spoken, hardly even a whisper. More like a catch in his breath that forms itself into a word.

"For a little while. By the time I got to Thirteen … it might have been the shock from the lightning strike. Or just the stress in general. Or - it may never have been viable. I don't know. I miscarried shortly after I got to Thirteen. I just ..."

"Wow," he says.

"... wanted you to know."

"That's -." He pauses and slumps down himself. "That's - unexpectedly depressing. And unfortunate," he adds suddenly. "I mean … maybe that would have changed - the course you are on now - if you hadn't - lost it?"

"And maybe it would change how _you_ feel. Who knows, Peeta?"

"How _I_ feel? How do I feel, Katniss?"

"Suicidal. Bleak. Lost. Nothing to live for. No one."

"Oh. Yeah, those all hit the right notes, although - although -" his voice rises a little - "although I can't actually feel it. Everything is blank. Sadness is blank. Anger is blank. Happiness - the memory of it, I mean - it's blank. All white and nothingness. The only things that move me are those memories - the shiny ones."

I shiver. "Shiny?"

"The ones the Capitol altered. When those memories come up, they are shiny, as if they were dipped in tracker jacker venom. Those thoughts make me feel - fear, doubt, anxiety - like they are needles poking in my skin."

I swallow. We are entering dangerous territory again. "But at least - if you can tell which memories were altered, you can also sort out what's real."

"Sure," he says. "And if I had wings, I could fly. But people can't grow wings - real or not real?"

"Real," I reply, as calmly as I can, fearing the escalation of this conversation - and yet, fascinated by it, as well. This glimpse into his strangely swirled-around brain. The things that he clings to. The things that he isn't sure that he knows. I want to catch him, rescue him from the whirlpool of his thoughts and anchor him, but I am almost out of time. "But people don't need wings to survive."

"Mockingjays do."

I part my lips on this assertion. I want to chide him. For him, I shouldn't be the Mockingjay. I shouldn't ever have to be anyone but myself. Or else, what is the point of intimacy? But - he doesn't feel this. He knows me, in part, as the Capitol forced him to know me - if not a mutt - thank goodness - still something not quite human - larger than life, an onscreen creature with synthetic wings. The Mockingjay. Who is herself part mutt. I deflate on this thought, but it's true, it's true. It's true. I have no home. I have no identity that belongs to me. I'm a Tribute - my life ordered by Snow, until it was ordered by Coin. The audience conflated me with the symbol I wore, and then the rebellion picked that up and then it was over - no more Katniss Everdeen of District 12. Just a carrier of messages, letting loose the occasional arrow. Only in District 2 have I ever said anything remotely true to myself. Except ….

Except for one night. When the drama that started out as fiction finished its slow evolution into the truth, and I didn't stop to second guess it, but just let it be what it was. Something ugly for the Capitol that formed its own kind of beauty the longer it existed in the real world. Just like the mockingjay.

But for Peeta, I realize suddenly, it went the opposite direction. Everything was true, until the Capitol convinced him it had all been fiction - and that became the truth for him. So, for him that night was not the intimacy that would solidify into love. It was some random, half-forgotten night of sex at the prelude of his descent into torture. But if - there had been a baby... And this is what I meant.

"If I was still pregnant," I tell him. "It wouldn't be great, I'm not saying that. There's a lot of shit to deal with, even if it were possible to make it out of this alive. But maybe - you would remember that it wasn't just frustration or desperation or - impulse - between us. Or, if you couldn't remember, maybe you could at least believe."

"Maybe. But what you tell me doesn't square with what I know is true. And I know - I know - things can be misinterpreted. But, when Gale was whipped …."

I groan softly.

"Katniss, I'm being honest here. There are memories that weren't on tape, that couldn't be touched. You don't ever forget that feeling - that stabbing sensation - when you can see for sure the love in someone's face that isn't for you."

"Gale and I … there are some things … sometimes, some things are better in theory than they are in practice. And some things you only know - when they are made explicit."

"Like what?"

I move - slowly and deliberately - toward him. His hands automatically jerk, and I take them in my own. He looks at me and he knows what I'm about to do. And I can see the panic in his face and I tell myself - it's suicide, maybe. But when I kiss him, he doesn't immediately resist. He doesn't respond either, but my heart starts pounding at the immediately familiar taste of his lips. How long has it been? Too long. And the length of time is nothing to the sheer number of things that have happened to us.

There's a scar that wasn't there before, I note hazily. And as I think it, his mouth opens to mine and conscious thought gives way to body memory - the motions automatic. Yes, and impulsive and desperate and frustrated. But also - deliberate and loving. At least my lips to his - I bring him trust and I bring him my desire and my love.

And I bring memory of all the other kisses, true or false. But what are false kisses? Kisses are kisses. And what was false about any of them? Strategy or not, I gave them to him to save his life. He was fevered and dying and I chose to stay with him and heal him, and to use the audience to do it. If my lips knew first what would take my head much longer to figure out ...

Gale gave me a kiss, too, and I gave it back to him, when he was wounded and needed me. But they didn't lead to this thing. The hunger for more and more and more and more. That's the difference. Small on the surface. Enormous otherwise. Impossible to predict without knowing, without kissing both pairs of lips. Are they interchangeable, Peeta and Gale?

Not even remotely.

His hands tremble again and I take them tighter in mine. I struggle against ending this - the taste of him, the smell of him. The sound of our shared breath and my sudden desire to shout out his name. I don't want to separate myself from it. Ever. But I do and I whisper. "Peeta."

"I can't," he says in a choked, faraway voice. His face is stiff and his eyes are confused and glassy. What have I done? I think sadly. "I - I -." But then he surprises me, lifting himself up just enough to reach my lips and kiss me in return. There is force and purpose in this kiss - what purpose, I don't know, and for the moment do not care. This is less familiar - it is wild with the things that have tormented him over the last few months. Or maybe this was always there, somewhere, and he was just more careful before, holding it back. I do - I do feel - even if I'm just imagining it - that all of him - the lights and the shadows, pain, awkwardness, fear, laughter, timidity and boldness - everything that is inside him is somehow concentrated in this ferocious kiss.

But most importantly what I feel now is no confusion between the old Peeta and the new. There is only one of him and, no matter how he feels about me now, I desire him as much as I always did.

His breathing is heavy when we separate and I let go of his clenched fists, slowly but surely. My fingers touch the face below me, thinner and more hollow than it should be. Past and present playing tag in his eyes. They flicker and twitch with the confusion and the sensations. Not everything is blank, then. "Stay with me," I tell him, drawing my fingernail across his cheekbone to move a stray bit of yellow hair from his pale face.

His breath catches - slows - becomes almost regular. My heartbeat follows this same pattern and I wait for his response. "Always," he says to me, at last, in a voice as if he remembers.

* * *

I wake abruptly, surprised that I slept. Some trilling birdsong woke me; some lark's call, it seemed like, but when I look around, I only see the trees and flowers of the rooftop garden. The chimes make a soft, listless noise. The sky is lightening toward dawn.

Somehow, again, I have moved into his arms overnight.

I maneuver myself free and kiss his sleeping cheek with reluctance. This is it. The last morning. The final separation coming. Perhaps it was cruel of me to reach out to him, to draw remembrance out of him. To remind him how much he once wanted me. To tell him that he once was nearly a father. Perhaps it would have been kindest to leave him in the hollow land, where I am nothing to him but a shadowy and suspicious character who once existed only to torment him.

But I'm self-centered like that.

I decide against waking him right away. I'll let him sleep until it's a little lighter. Instead, I think of a goodbye present, one with more permanence than a kiss, though it might remind him of one. I dig around for the pearl I have kept in my pocket this whole time. It has traveled with me from the arena to 13, 8, 2 and up to the Capitol. My token of the boy who I lost in the arena. I intended for it to go back to him in the end, anyway. So I slip it inside his pocket and hope that, once found, he remembers it. Then I crawl back to the stairwell and wake a sleeping Cressida. She, in turn, stirs Pollux awake, and they split a can of soup.

"Gah - it's frozen," says Cressida.

I look up at the cloudy sky. "It's going to snow again today," I say. "Let me see if anything's happening yet - before it gets too light."

I creep over and look down on the City Circle again. To my surprise, there is some activity. It looks like a group of Peacekeepers are setting up some barriers at the bottom of the steps. My heart skips a beat. Why else would they do this except to protect Snow? Could I have been right? Is he going to come out himself, soon, and make an announcement to the waiting crowds?

"Cressida," I say, once back in the stairwell. "We have to get down to a lower balcony."

"Are you kidding? That means going inside one of the suites. What if they're occupied?"

"It's too risky to try to shoot him from this far away. I want to get down to the third floor. I've got my bow, and we've got the element of surprise."

"You couldn't make this decision before the night of sleeping in the cold?"

I smile.

* * *

"I guess they haven't opened the government buildings up to the evacuees," says Cressida, when, less than a half hour later, we are gathered together in the vacant third-floor suite, a near-exact duplicate of the 12th floor. I peer outside through the curtains that cover the balcony doors and am startled by how close up they seem, even from here - the Capitol citizens, huddled together. The Peacekeepers standing at intervals in front of the mansion. My tension dissolves into an almost delicious tingling sensation - my senses heightened. It's the end of the hunt, and I can finally feel it. I lick my lips and turn back to the others. Cressida and Pollux are turning on and checking their equipment.

"Katniss," Cressida says, "I want you in the Mockingjay suit."

It's an excellent idea. When I change, when I'm garbed in the tight layers of armor, my hair re-braided and slung over one shoulder, my humming black bow slung over the other - I feel powerful again, in control of the situation. That was Cinna's specific gift: to understand exactly how to manufacture internal strength from external appearance; it's both the concrete reality of it - the spine-straightening fibers, the broadening of my shoulders - and also the power of suggestion: because the skin-tight fabric molds to me - hard and soft at once - I feel that it is not separate from me and so I take on its qualities and I am also strong, dark and beautiful. It should be simple - laughably easy - to assassinate Snow this morning.

But there's one task left first, and this one makes me feel vulnerable. I turn to the boy whose eyes could strip me bare. The person who can destabilize, unfound me - dissolve me, destroy me. I've been without his strength for so long, now, and the prop I'm leaning on - this uniform that gives me a false, a temporary sense of power - is no substitute for the rock he used to be. And I know that. But I only need to be strong for a short time now. As long as … as long as …

"Peeta," I say, and he looks at me curiously. Last night's kisses and confessions seem to have had, at last, a stabilizing effect on him. There's something less blank about him now, as well. He almost looks like the boy I was Reaped with - frightened but brave; innocent; curious. The difference is that then he was hiding things from me; and now he really has nothing left to hide. As I know all too well, what he thinks he says; and what he doesn't remember, he asks.

"You look ready," he says to me, and he smiles - thinly, it's true, but still.

My heart fills up with all of the things to regret - the other life I could have had. But it's all nonsense. If none of this had happened, then, what? Realistically, even if I had avoided the arena, would I have loved him in District 12? Even if I had, would I have risked pregnancy? Once I thought - and once almost told him - that he was best off not loving me because I would never commit myself to that life and he would end up hating me. So - there was never going to be a pretty outcome. When he sacrificed himself to join me in the Quell, it altered our relationship - or accelerated it, to be honest. But it ended up being for Panem's benefit, not for ours - because here we are, nearly at the end of it. His capture and my despair the direct cause of the coming effect: me sacrificing myself for the privilege of killing Snow with my own hands. And it will be worth it, because things will be better - but for future lovers, not for us.

"Listen to me," I say, taking his hand and just holding it. I look down at our interlaced fingers and deliberately do not think of that night. I remind myself instead of the pact we made at the outset of the Victory Tour - to ally ourselves in the pageant of the romance, and protect our families, our home and - though we did not know it at the time - the Rebellion itself. A bittersweet arrangement with bittersweet results. Here, at last, this alliance can end. "When I'm done here - no matter the outcome - I'm going to have to run. You need to get out before it happens. Down the stairs, through the back way. Avoid the main streets - and don't go too far at first, because of the pods. Once the rebellion is in, the streets will be safer. I think that might mean by the end of the day, to be honest. Depends on who's in charge at the end of this," I add, thinking uneasily about Coin.

Peeta nods, but slowly. "Any camera footage of me entering the building with you will mean …."

"I know, they'll look for you, eventually. But in the mayhem, you should be able to hide. If I were you …." I pause and wonder - what _would_ I do, if I was planning to survive the war? "If I were you, after today, I'd get to the train station, picking up as many supplies as possible in the abandoned houses, and follow the tracks home. Try to avoid other districts unless you need supplies. I don't know if there's anyone you can trust, except for Haymitch, and not even him until he's out of 13. If you want to avoid being found even in 12, there's a place outside 12 you can go …." And I describe, hastily, the house at the lake. "The fishing is easy there and there is plenty of wild food. Wait awhile before you try to contact Haymitch. When everything calms down and things are safe …."

"What?"

I swallow. "Promise me that you'll take care of yourself. I mean seriously - make yourself a good life, as best as possible. And that includes - loving someone again-."

"Katniss-."

"Shh. Shh. Promise me. You could have a long life and even a happy one. Promise me that you'll - give yourself as freely to someone as you once gave yourself to me. That will help - make this worth it."

His lips part, but no words come at first. Then: "Promises that can't be kept should never be made."

I let go of his hand. "I suppose you're right, only - just remember this. Later. Peeta -." I step up to him and put my arms around his neck, my face against his chest. I close my eyes and I feel him. All the strength in him weakened, but still there, deep under the surface. He needs no costumes or props. At the core of him, at the seed, he is simply - strong. Under all the fragile layers of his ego and all the frayed layers of his emotions - something untouchable, even by Snow. Something that will heal him, maybe even almost all the way. I feel hollow, empty. He is solid. And his arms are sweet. They wrap around me now in the answering hug. How little I appreciated them before! "I love you," I breathe into his chest before pulling abruptly away.

Cressida takes Pollux's camera equipment and after awhile I realize that she is sending him away, too. Their goodbye is emotional, if not as fraught as mine was, and he and Peeta leave the suite. I take a good look at Cressida's hard and determined face, then return to the window. The morning is full on now, but snowfall is heavier and it's actually a bit darker than before. The populace is stirring … no, I see now that they are actually being directed - behind the barricades that I assumed were for Snow. My heart drops. What? Wait …. The Peacekeepers are moving through the crowd, collecting the children. The children are being placed behind the barricades. Shit - oh, shit why didn't I see this coming? As the rebellion approaches - and by now they must be quite close - Snow is constructing an actual human wall - a wall of children - as the last desperate barricade between himself and their guns. I put my hand over my mouth. It is so twisted. As well as being incredibly predictable - and problematic.

"We're going to have to come up with a new plan," I say to Cressida. "I don't think he's coming." Fury at my own failure - at my inability, at the last, to read his mind and understand his works - chokes me for a moment. Then, my resolve hardens. I myself will go out to the City Circle, up to the barricades, up the stairs and demand to see Snow. "This must mean that he is expecting the rebellion at his doorstep at any time. I'm - going to draw him out."

"What do you mean?"

I explain quickly and I can see the wheels spinning in Cressida's head. She says: "We need to go back to the roof. I want some footage of what Snow is doing, and I want to see if we can see the rebel fighting from here. Katniss," she says, as I start to object. "If I can get this footage to Plutarch before they come … the rebels need to know what they are walking in to."

We go back upstairs and peek over all sides of the building, Cressida narrating what she sees while she films. To the south, we can see it - the approaching battle: flashes of light, sudden columns of smoke. It's mere blocks away; in fact the closest of the combat is on the Avenue itself, on the route of the Tribute Parade.

"Yes," Cressida says, "I've got signal. I'm transmitting to Plutarch … now."

"OK, I - what?!" The sky above us darkens suddenly, and there's an angry screech of noise and a rush of wind. A low-flying hovercraft has materialized just outside the City Circle. I rise from my crouched position, my mouth open, as it approaches. "It's a Capitol hovercraft!" I yell at Cressida, whose camera is pointing up to me now.

"I didn't think they had any left! Are they attacking the rebels?"

I look at the bright, fresh-looking, Capitol logos on the underside of the wings. The craft isn't attacking - yet - just gliding slowly over the Circle, its noise overcoming the sounds of the crowd below and the fighting behind. "No! I wonder … " My brain flies. I wonder if this is Snow's escape plan. Slow up the battle long enough to board a final hovercraft, held in reserve for the purpose, and escape … where? Is there somewhere to go? Some other secret holdout, like 13, that the rest of us don't know about? I pull an arrow - one of the explosive ones - from my quiver, and set it to the bow.

I'm taking aim at it - waiting for it to pass over the crowd. If I hit it right, it might explode right over the mansion itself. Then … something odd happens. Just as it is passing the Tribute Center, a hatch opens and dozens of silver parachutes - the kind we received from the Capitol in the arena as gifts from sponsors - come floating down to descend on the crowd. They land specifically among the barricaded group of children.

Cressida rises to film this event, and I gape at the hovercraft. There's something strange about it. I recognize something … a mark, a distinct, squiggly burn mark on the hull. "It's ours!" I shout, lowering my bow. "That's 13's hovercraft! Look!"

The explosion below us drowns out my final word and knocks both of us over. Screams below us rise up over the noise and we run to edge to look down and see the flash of the bombs - from our distance, looking like bright, brief firecrackers against the snow. Sudden silence follows and the smoke clears, revealing black and red splashes on the snow. Then, with a collective groan, the crowd moves towards the devastation. We can see, among the brightly-colored citizens, the white lines of Peacekeepers and the gray-uniformed rebels converging on the barricade.

"Oh my god," gasps Cressida, zooming in on the scene below us. "The children - it's … the rebels are here. And those are medics from 13 …."

And then the entire circle below us ignites.

A fireball erupts from the center of the devastation, engulfing everyone in the vicinity. For a moment, I can only see flame - not even the shapes or shadows of the people around which it burns. Rebel, Peacekeeper, Capitol citizen, Capitol _children_. Cressida, her hand steady, starts cursing softly at whatever she sees close up in her camera lens. "My god, my god," she gasps.

I sent Peeta down there, I think suddenly. I raise my bow. I must have been mistaken, I think to myself. ( _Mistaken about what? The identity of the craft? My alliances?_ ) I let the arrow go just as it's starting to make an upward arc - and it explodes, the hovercraft with the double-bombs. ( _Something familiar about that …_.) It explodes in a bright ball of flame and black clouds, its burning pieces falling out of the sky over the mansion. I watch, still as stone, as one wing dives right through the pretty round white dome over the pillars at the front entrance, and the entire structure of the porch starts to collapse. When I look down, I see that Cressida's camera is now pointing toward me again.

I want to say something directly to Plutarch, but I'm confused and afraid. The things he wanted to do to end the war. The traps they were playing with, the more and more to kill. Snow not _even_ the target of this most recent attack.

"I was too late," I say to the camera.

Who was down there, in the confusion? Peeta and Pollux? Maybe even Gale?

Yes, yes and yes. And one more - the last person I would ever have expected.


	19. All the Space in It

All the Space in It

* * *

"The thing that I don't understand," I say, "is why my sister was even _there_. She's under-aged, not fully trained. You can try to explain away the rest - but never that."

Coin has chosen a brightly-lit room for our meeting place, some small conference room in the hospital. It's just the four of us - Coin and Plutarch on one side of a table. Boggs and me on the other. Her right hand man, but it was to my side that he came. He knows what I know. He saw what I saw. Thirteen's hovercraft, used in a brutal act of terror.

"I don't turn down requests from people who choose to serve," she says thinly. "That is not our way. She is nearly fourteen, and so …."

"What I can't figure out," I interrupt coolly, "is your intent. Killing your own soldiers and medics - that would be shocking enough. But I suppose - if it was my own sister killed among them, I wouldn't question you, is that it? I'd be so filled with grief, with rage, I would be effectively in your corner - even if I did make it out alive? Is that it?"

"You have a morbid imagination, Miss Everdeen. I'm sure that your time in the arena is to blame - for your warped sense of how the world actually works. But you will learn, I trust, that life is not so complicated - so deliberately brutal."

"I'm sure I will," I tell her. Then I stare at her for a long time, taking in the lines around her pale eyes, the signs of discord in her hair - the staticky strands that will not, for once, stay in place. She's in trouble now, and she knows it. My exclamation on the identity of the hovercraft aired live - thanks to Plutarch - and then on loop after loop in the hours and days following. And now her control over 13 has finally cracked. People who had family members among the dead … people who simply looked at it and knew that it was wrong … they are leading an unprecedented campaign against her authority. Forget Snow's job - she actually may have lost her own.

"You could do so much to stabilize things," she says, finally, her voice cracking a little, "if you just made a public statement about your uncertainty…."

"You do _not_ want me to make a public statement," I tell her. It is to Plutarch that I look, and to him that I nod, as I rise from my seat. "I'm done here. You know where to find me."

* * *

"Prim."

She struggles against the morphling, and my mother and I stroke her arms until she calms down. She is being moved from the burn unit to surgery and in the transition, her near-wakefulness brings her the pain. It's hard to look at her now; her red, bubbly skin; it will be hard to live with her scarred - to be reminded of what she went through, needlessly. But at least she's alive.

The person responsible for both her scars and her life waits outside Prim's room, and after she's moved, I go out and sit next to him. He was pretty badly burned himself, but she was right near the barricades, running in with the rest of 13's medics, to help treat the injured children, when the secondary explosion happened. And he was armored. And he was also forewarned. He knew the second explosion was coming, and he just had time to call out to her, to stop her in her tracks - to save her from the incineration that took all the rest of her colleagues. It was that close.

It is Coin's fault even more than his, I remind myself. She authorized it.

But it is Gale's involvement, indirect though it might be, that I can't shake from my system. I try to tell myself it is irrational, but I know it is not. It's not the fact that it happened. It's the fact that he dreamed it up - he approved it, defended it to me. You shouldn't need to go into an arena to understand that it's wrong. You just need to be alive.

But I say, "She'll be OK. They're grafting skin today, then after a few days of recovery, she'll start therapeutic treatments."

We haven't really spoken of it. His quiet remorse is proof enough that he knows that I know - it was his concept, developed for 13, that was used in the City Circle that day.

"You're leaving today?" I ask.

He nods. "Yes."

He's headed to District 2. To clean up rogue loyalists. Loyalists - that's a laugh. Even the last stand of Capitol Peacekeepers - those watching in horror as the parachutes exploded - turned on Snow that day. When it came to evacuating the burning mansion, they joined with the Rebels to rescue all the staff and the president's family who were within. Most survived. Snow, 'mysteriously' enough, did not. Nonetheless - there are still pockets of pro-Snow resistance left. Nothing clean, nothing easy about the end of a war.

After I wish Gale good luck and he leaves - me wondering when and in what circumstances I will ever see him again - I go down the hall to another hospital room. This one is kept dim. I find Haymitch sleeping in one of the beds.

Haymitch has taken up residence in the Game Center - his long-time dwelling when he served as mentor during the Games. My mother and I took the 12th floor of the Tribute Center. I don't think these arrangements work for either Haymitch or myself - too many horrific memories. But we're stuck here for now.

"Haymitch, what the hell?" I say.

He wakes up blearily - he's back to booze now, released from 13's restrictions. Free to drown his memories until he drowns himself. I hope that's not anytime soon. But there's not a whole lot I want to remember, either.

"What?" he asks me.

I stare pointedly at the empty bed in the room. "Where is he?" Peeta should be there.

He just couldn't quite keep himself out of trouble. He and Pollux had made their way outside and were trying to figure out how to navigate the crowds when the first explosions rang out. Hearing screams and cries for help, Peeta turned around to go into the crowd and was caught on the fringes of it when the fireball erupted. At first they were sure that he would lose his sight, but now they think it unlikely. Just that he needs time for recuperation and then his own surgeries to heal the burned skin of his face.

"Katniss …" Haymitch says, so slowly, that for a moment I fear the worst.

"What? Is he awake?"

"Yes."

Peeta's coma, induced, at first, by medications, has lasted since they brought him here - screaming, I've heard, in pain - and perhaps in the terror of being captured again. They've tried to talk to him - Haymitch talked - I did, some, but held back a little by the fear that maybe my voice isn't the best one for him to hear. Plans have been made for him - he has a new Capitol psych team - eager to see how he's doing post-hijacking. He's a rare case - a rare survivor of that form of torture. Haymitch says he'll be institutionalized. Observed, given therapy, drugs. I object to this plan - mostly just on its being Capitol-based - but who am I to do so? There's no one, really, with the legal standing to make decisions for him while he's incapacitated. His last status was a District 13 soldier, so he's a ward of 13 for now.

"When's he coming back?"

"Where have you been?" he responds, sharply.

"Prim went into surgery today."

"How is she?" asks Haymitch, more gently.

"They say she'll be fine. They say that - eventually - it will be hard to even tell." I frown at him, wondering what he isn't telling me, but very aware that Haymitch spills his information in his own fashion and his own time. "When she can travel, my mother wants to take her to District 4. There are some mineral baths in the mountains out there and they are supposed to be good for skin treatment. And mom's been asked to help start a hospital over there. There's plenty of room in Finnick's house, I've heard."

"Sounds wise all around. What about you?"

"Haymitch, _please_."

"When he started waking up - he was in a lot of pain. They didn't want to medicate him again, so they took him to do a foam treatment. He's …."

"Where?"

"I'm sorry - it's an isolated unit. He can't be exposed to infections right now. He's already running a fever and they have to get that down. Once that happens - he'll go into surgery himself. And then …."

"How long will that take?"

He shrugs. "However long it needs to take."

"I can't even - see him?"

Haymitch looks at me with sympathy and I bite down on the impulse to start kicking furniture.

"How soon after his surgery are they taking him away?"

He shrugs. "As close to right away as they can, I think. They're eager to start working on his head."

I shiver. Then I slap my forehead as a thought occurs to me - too late. "They think we're married, don't they? Can't I …."

Haymitch shakes his head. "They think you two went through some cute faux wedding ceremony back in District 12 - they know there is no legal relationship."

"Haymitch."

"OK, OK. They maybe are under the impression that he might need some space from you. I don't know what you got up to on your little side trip to the Capitol, but all they know is what 13 told them: that he is constantly a threat to kill you - that he is easily confused, easily startled - and a potential flight risk."

"What should I do?"

"What were your plans - once your sister is released? Are you planning to go with them to 4?"

This is the thing - the strange thing.

I want to go home. To my destroyed district. To my woods and my hills. Away from people - all these people with their curiosity and their congratulations and their sympathy. They feel like I killed Snow. I feel like I failed them. I feel that what happened in the City Circle has everything to do with my getting to Snow too late. Everything to do with the propaganda I did for 13 and the Rebellion, giving them the authority to wage the war as they saw fit. Everything to do with my alliance with Coin, the power I gave her over me. I let them play me, and the win was bitter. As always.

Haymitch has told me that people are heading home from 13 - back to District 12 to start piecing it back together. I'm curious as to the results - a brand new district, practically, rising out of the ashes of the war. I could - help with that. I could help remake what I helped to bring down.

"I don't know," I tell Haymitch. I'm not sure if he would laugh at my notions, or agree with them. "Maybe - eventually - I'll join them. But it sounds a little crowded for my taste, just now. What about you?"

"I've got one last tribute to get through to the end of this," he says.

I smile at this - then I frown. "Haymitch - where I left things with Peeta, before the end of it - I don't know. He's definitely getting better, I would swear to it." And I have more than a little bit to do with that - that I would also swear.

"Then - they won't need to keep him for long."

"I think it might be for the best to let him heal naturally - in his own pace and time. These people don't know anything about him - they don't know the things maybe he doesn't even remember about himself. Who knows what they'll …."

"I'll look out for him."

Tears fall from my eyes - I'm surprised by the cold touch of the water rolling down my cheek. "You think I should go." It comes out as an accusation, and, in a way - it is. We're a team, damn it.

"For your own sake, yes, Katniss. You haven't even begun to process everything you've been through. Once you have nothing else to worry about - nothing immediate, I mean - it's going to hit you like a train. You're going to need space and time to recover, even if you don't feel it now. It's not the right time to deal with everything else. And the same goes for _him_ \- double." He pauses. "You have to do this, Katniss."

"Do what?" I ask, not looking at him. There's a dull pattern of flecks on the floor. The pattern seems to spell out my letdown in the language of beige and taupe dots.

"Get out of the alliance and let whatever happens in the future be for real. An actual choice he makes. An actual choice you make - not something you're forced into. Not even something that evolved out of the thing you were forced into. Let him go."

I gasp out loud. It's such a gentle way to say such a brutal thing. My resistance to this notion is not lessened by my knowledge that he is right, he is right. He is _possibly_ right. "I at least want to say good-bye. I want him to know that - that - I didn't abandon him. Again."

"We'll see." It's all he'll give me.

I wipe my face and turn my back on him. It's not fair, I think, anger spiking in me - an anger that frightens me with its intensity. An anger that rises and snakes up my spine, leaving my mouth dry in its wake, so much that I feel like I might choke on my tongue. To have the excuse of madness to scream and scream. That's what I would like right now.

"I'll make sure he knows you were here when he was unconscious."

The sudden recession of the anger leaves me feeling deflated - and ashamed of myself. What do I desire? For myself? For others? Are my needs incompatible with everyone else's? Gale's - yes. My mother's and Prim's. Maybe even Haymitch's. Who knows where he will end up? Somewhere he can drink unchecked. That might not be District 12. But Peeta's? Are our personal needs really that incompatible with each other? No one else has been through the specific things we've been through. And anyway - where else has he to go? In the woods, in the hills, in the waters of home - why would that not be good for him?

But I have no say in the matter. The only thing I can hope now is that they don't mess him up just when he is starting to recover. The only thing I can place my faith in - once again - in this matter of Peeta's life - is Haymitch.

And I know I might be wrong - all wrong - anyway. To love someone is not to cling to him, hold on to him when he should not be held. Sometimes love is not just the vastness of the universe - but all the space in it, as well. Peeta knew this already - he gave it to me himself, once before. A last debt that I owe him.

"Thank you," I say to Haymitch, meaning it at least a little bit.


	20. Silver Light

Silver Light

* * *

I rise to my feet and my long hair flattens against my cheeks and the water runs down my neck and my back. For a moment I stand there, ankle deep in the lake, as the water starts to slowly evaporate into the bright noon sky.

No one ever comes out here, except for me, but I look around for any intrusive or curious animals of the larger variety before I step onto the shore and pull the towel up over my naked flesh. Call it a ritual of mine I have developed over the summer: to strip off the costume of my seemingly-normal life and give my true self to the elements. Sometimes, this is what I have to do when it all becomes too much.

* * *

Spring used to be my season. The animal pleasures of childhood. The lift of new life intrinsically tied to the basics: spring brought food and it helped to secure shelter. There was some laughter - even Gale might laugh in the spring - some running around for the joy of it. Mainly, though, it was when the hunt grew better and the hunger grew less.

But this spring was for ashes and mourning. I came home - getting on a train the same day as my mother and Prim and Finnick and Annie did, but headed in the opposite direction - to find my district still largely buried under its own dust. There were still bodies to lay to rest. Rubble to clear. Roofs to raise. And Haymitch was right - maybe not about _everything_ , but he was right about this, and I suppose I should have guessed it - a dark and crushing depression hit me about the moment I opened my eyes on the second day back and realized there was nothing for me to do and nothing I desired to do.

I was lonely, but company troubled and annoyed me. These few people who have come back to raise my District from the dead still looked to me as if I was the girl with all the answers. I'm an eighteen-year-old kid whose skills all belong to a world that no longer exists: I was trained to kill, reaped to kill, coached to encourage others to kill. What do I know about bringing to life? Even their remotest gesture of reaching out to me - in support or supplication - could cause me to immediately shrink away.

In my dreams, people are still dying by the points of my arrows - even those who are still alive. I wake up sweating, feeling like I am a sickness, like I should be kept away from everyone. When I reach out for assurances, I feel hypocritical and foolish. I survived. Why should I not thrive?

Some nights I dream of the pile of corpses - literally, a pile of bones just like the one we buried in a mass grave over what we used to call a meadow. How is it even possible that I am not one of them? I spend whole days on the question. I had a target on my back for nearly two years. I went to the arena so that everyone else could survive. _Why did this happen?_

The lowest point came sometime around my birthday, one of the many times I have almost just decided to leave 12 behind me, and hide from my despair somewhere else. I visited my family in District 4 and they were healing and beginning to flourish. Annie was pregnant; Finnick was busy with his boats. Or there's District 3, where they are starting a free academy for any district citizen who wants to learn anything - from animal husbandry to jewelry-making to writing songs. Or even District 1, where Effie "retired" to - a small but prosperous district in the mountains. I have options.

But my comfort in visiting these other places lasted very briefly. Eventually, memories of dead tributes or the Victory Tour would find their way back into my nightmares. Since I can settle nowhere, I might as well be home.

But when I returned home, it was even darker and more foreboding - the aching, stretching loneliness of my life, and the crowds of the dead who invade my dreams. For several days, I played with the two little nightlock pills I still had, rubbing them between my fingers. Setting them down on the table and just staring at them.

"I could at least forget there is a pile of corpses." His dark words made sense to me, running through my head.

I wondered how much he still wanted to take the pill himself. I did have two.

And that thought horrified me, and I was at that moment beyond happy that he was somewhere being kept safe from himself. Maybe even being talked and talked into somehow not feeling that way, anymore.

 _I can't write much. For one thing, I'm sure everything is being read by someone here. For another - there's not much to my days. A lot of talking and talking. Not that it's not helpful, just that it can be pretty dull. I know why you are not here, and, although being in the Capitol without you again feels strange by several measures, I am glad that you are home and hope that you are content._

 _..._

 _Katniss:_

 _I'm gonna piggyback on Peeta's letter to say thank you for writing to him. As we've spoken of before, there was a long period of physical recovery and setbacks. Those were lonely times - sometimes it was just talking to him from behind a glass wall (just like before, which wasn't a good feeling for any of us). He had visitors, it's true, and not just people checking off a box for the cameras (like Plutarch), but others. Effie. Cressida. Your mom came once. As promised, I explained to him why you left and half-convinced him it was in a good cause. He's stubborn like you that way. But that's the problem. There's a kind of dependence that can happen between people in war and trauma - I've seen it too many times. You either shove people away or cling to them as if they would die if they got too far from view. Relationships don't ultimately flourish in those conditions. And until he was moved to psych, he was in a bad way, worse than I let on - sad one day, angry the next; a little too happy the day after that. He's got the torture on top of the war on top of the arenas to deal with._

 _But he's been better since the move - more stable, more reflective. They were worried when they gave him your letter. In fact, they might have delayed it by a day or two. Nothing is done here unless it's by committee. But he was genuinely happy to get it. I think he took three days and thirty versions of a response to write back. It was something to see. He's got this funny idea that you must not be doing that well yourself and he wanted you to know that he misses you but does not feel abandoned by you - that he worries about you but also knows that you can take care of yourself. Not sure that conveyed, so I thought I'd let you know._

 _H.A._

So, I put the nightlock pills away and eventually I crushed them into dust.

Then, as summer came on, I started to sweat these feelings away. I have worked, whole days of depression swallowed up in toil under the sun. And I have hunted and fished. I have planted things in the ground - mostly vegetables, but also some flowers along the side of my house. Morning glories unfurl at dawn, climbing up their trellis with splashes of blue and purple; sunflowers lift their heads to follow the track of their namesake across the bright sky; primroses bloom as the sun goes down, bright orange and yellow around my porch in the last golden light of the day.

The wild onions mature in the late summer and I pick not only the bulbs but the whole plant, filling jars and jars in my house with the ragged white flowers.

Dandelions carpet that part of District 12 that used to be the Seam. I eat the greens all summer and spend lazy afternoons lying in the sun, blowing wispy white wishes into the sky.

As the green grasses grow yellow at the tips, and the air takes on the natural odor of an oven warming in the distance, memories of my father come rushing back in. These are things I stopped thinking about a long time ago, because it hurt too much to remember. Now, I can hear him singing to me as we walked the deep woods, and sometimes I remember him explaining the words. I retrace our steps, find myself singing his songs - there were so many of them, from so long ago, that I startle myself by how many I can recall.

Of _course_ , there is a sense of the thing left undone - a sense that pursues me everywhere. A sense that grows stronger the farther away from it I try to go. If I press flowers, preserving them in a new book, it reminds me sharply of the artist who could preserve them for real with his paints. If I struggle to learn to bake something in the oven, I turn at times, to look over my shoulder, sure that he is smiling over my attempts. When I sing to myself in the woods - I ache for the missing audience: the little boy, who is perpetually falling in love with me as my voice fades at the end.

So I run to the lake, strip myself of everything and take to the water, wash off the sweat, swim off the memories for a while and remind myself that what I did for love - releasing him - is far better than everything I did for myself: holding him, but at arm's length; using him while resenting letting myself be used; _hurting_ him and hurting myself. I relive, for just a moment, the decision I made one night to let everything else go - past, future and all of the present except for him - and to let myself be naked, body and soul, to him. It was not done necessarily with the clearest head; but the clarity afterward - the touchstone moment that it was - provided me perspective later, and again much later, and still to this day. It turns out to have been one of my finer moments. I may not have another night like that, but when it all becomes too much, I memorialize it, in a way: the water running in rivulets down my back; the caress of the warm arms of the sun.

* * *

Today, while I dry out on the shore of the lake, I watch the thick clouds lining the southern horizon and try to estimate how much longer I have before I need to take shelter from the coming storm. There is an energy under the thick, humid air that hints of electricity. It's the time of year when sudden summer storms bring an abrupt change - a blanket over the sun, the rush of winds on the front of the storm, the first hints of the fall.

But for now ….

There is an unexpected sound behind me that breaks my thought. I jerk around, sensitive to my extra vulnerability, my arm reaching down automatically for the bow that isn't even with me. But then I straighten.

"Hey."

He's still some distance away, on the rocky ridge above the beach. His footsteps, as usual, are just so much louder than they should be. I put my hand over my eyes and squint up at him, as if I can't actually see him in the sunlight, but it's really just something to do with my free hand while my heart jumps and my mind races.

"Hey," I say, and at that he walks closer. I swallow - my grip on the towel around me tightens. The last time I saw this face, the snow was falling in the Capitol and my best hope for myself had been a quick and painless death. It is changed - in some ways, I guess, quite a bit. There is a deep scar that runs across his right cheekbone. Around his eyes, the skin is slightly pinker, slightly more textured, than the rest of his face, though I only see this when he stands right in front of me. But - his eyes are clear and bright - the intense blue that pierced fake flames and mud and golden lashes and fierce makeup; so, in a way, he looks more like himself than he has at any time since we were separated in the Quell. "You _remembered_."

His lips quirk up bemusedly (there's still a scar there, too, on his upper lip, and I recall it with fondness). "I did remember. I had a feeling this is where I would find you again."

"You didn't tell me you were coming."

"No," he says. "I didn't have much advance notice, and -." He glances down. "I couldn't find a way to announce it without sounding like I was sending you a dire warning. It's just - to try to put the words on paper - has been ... difficult."

I shake my head. It's true - the handful of letters I've had from him have been careful, restrained. As have mine been - always mindful of Haymitch's insistence that things between us would need to start all over again in some neutral place and time with the contrivance of our Capitol romance well behind us. There's just one problem with that. "It's so good to see you, Peeta. You look …."

"Damaged," he says quietly.

"No - I was going to say you look _great_ ; much better than I had even hoped for."

His smile breaks over his face and he touches his cheek. "It will fade, eventually."

Without pausing to wonder if I should ask permission, I step forward and put my fingers on his face. I trace the line of it. I keep my eyes lowered, and I can feel his gaze on me. I just want to smell him. I just want to be close enough to hear him breathe. That's all I want right now. "I hope it doesn't all the way. It's very distinctive."

"Your appearance is a bit more than _I_ had hoped for," he says. "But I've come at a bad time?"

"No," I say. " _Never_."

I look up and into his eyes, and I see what's happening there - the same thing that might once have happened to me. He's looking at me with all the intensity that I remember from the days of our alliance - he's trying to hold back the rush of feelings, keep them carefully, protectively hidden away. Perhaps they've surprised even him with the potency of their return, this quickly and after all this time. But long habit of holding them back has kicked in even more swiftly. I can see it. I know this face; I know what it reveals by what it is trying to hide.

"I was just about to get dressed," I tell him. "And have lunch. You'll stay?"

"Of course."

I step back a few paces and turn around, letting the towel slip off me in the process. There is nothing, after all, to hide anymore. No cameras to pry. Nobody else, for miles. I pull on shorts and a tank top, run my fingers through my tangled hair, then turn back with a smile and hold out my hand. "Ready?"

He walks stiffly forward and takes it. Our fingers lock together, white and brown - even more of a contrast than before, given his months in a hospital ward and mine spent in the sun. But they feel the same as they did before, the notches of our bones sliding in place against each other, the roughness of fingertips pressed against the softer skin of the hand. In the split-second before it starts to happen, I realize that he is pulling me closer to him. I give him no resistance.

"Katniss," he says, a quiet word with the force of a thousand days, hurts, pleasures, waiting, suffering and fulfillment behind it.

"I know," I tell him. I tip my chin up and he accepts the invitation.

So I have come to love the summer, even more than I loved the spring.

* * *

By dawn, the storm has rolled away and when I step out into the silvery light, I hear the call of the lark, herald of the morning. It's an uncomplicated song - at least in comparison to the mockingjay's. But not really. The larksong is the ancient and once-sacred greeting of the sun. It sings the reconciliation of night and day; the call to morning rites; the sadness of the separation of lovers at dawn - a sadness that is a part of the fullness of love. What lovers learn from that moment is inseparable from the lessons learned overnight.

I walk deep into the trees, through the heavy dripping of the saturated branches, until I come to the place where the birdsong originates. There is a meadowlark's nest above me - I can see the lump on one of the lower branches.

I put my face up to the sky, and my arms, too, joining in the ritual. My movements startle the birds and there is a sudden flutter, and now soft needles are falling on my skin, along with the drips of water. I pull my hands down to my face - one of them is clenched tight into a fist, and I uncurl it so I can see the pearl.

" _I gave this to_ you _."_

" _But this has always been a goodbye gift."_

" _Yeah, I guess. But I like to think of it as a receptacle for memory. Or - for the entire universe, maybe. That's why I want you to have it back."_

I walk back toward the lake, my heart lifting up higher, as if following the meadowlarks into the sky.

I come back to the little concrete house in time to see the pink ball of the sun complete its rise over the lake. They sit in still contentment for just a few minutes, gently kissing - the softened, watery light of the sun and the quiet, glowing surface of the water. Now all the birds around me are awake and singing.

Inside the house, he is naked, sleeping with his arms and legs sprawled out on top of the hastily-made bed of towels and clothes on the concrete floor.

How long had it been? A year - even more than that - since the night before the Quell. But for some things, time and space are meaningless. As the kiss lengthened, it stretched forward and backward - from the halting kisses of our childhood to the suddenly bright promise of our future. Whatever he did or didn't remember about the first time didn't matter. What mattered was the rightness of it, the inevitability - the feeling of everything falling into place, at last. What mattered was - his hands lingering gently on the places of my body reserved only for him. What mattered was hearing him call me to him in his voice again - in that particular tone of affection and need, of admiration and frustration that makes the syllables of my name sound like a unique word never spoken by anyone else.

(Oh, there was an attempt at conversation in there somewhere; an accounting of what each of us had been up to - what our handful of letters to each other had carefully left out; but the entire time, our eyes watched each other, wolfishly circling around the end of the hunt: each of us predator and prey all at once - the way it _should_ be.)

This morning I remember it all like it is a dizzy montage - the moment the pent-up energy reached its tipping point, sounding like broken breaths and feeling like an explosion. I remember when the thunder started, and then the darkness was rent by rhythmic pulses of light. It added a certain animal urgency to the song we were performing again, the one I had told myself I had forgotten: his deep, throaty moans, and my softer cries rising and falling between them. The spent-up feeling at the end, the exhaustion its own form of pleasure as my clenching muscles relaxed and I floated down, down, down into some soft bed of arms and fuzzy hair and the steady murmur of his voice sighing words I didn't even bother to try to understand. Just that they filled - finally - the hollow place within me that I had never felt would be satisfied.

Last night I could not stop touching the scar - this new part of him to learn. Yes, it will fade in time but I will never forget - what I did, what he went through - what gave him that mark. Not snow, but fire. I will never be so incautious with his life again.

"You always flutter away," he says, stirring as I watch him.

"I always come back," I smile at him.

"Or is it me?" he smiles in return. "Is it me that always comes back?"

"Let's call it even," I tell him.

"I had a dream," he says, "when I was knocked out in the Capitol. At least it felt like a dream. When I woke up, I was all alone and at first I thought I was dead. They had me wrapped in this gauzy stuff; it felt like clouds, but it smelled like medicine. I was hot and cold, I was naked and suffocating all at the same time. It was too strange to be real. But as I woke up, I thought I had heard your voice, whispering something to me."

He stretches and sits up as I move across the room to sit down beside him. I take in everything - the broad shoulders and the smooth skin and the rough; the movement of his chest with his steady breath; the warmth emanating from him, curling itself around me like a physical presence. I stare at the long, golden eyelashes, framing his blue eyes, wide with questions and promises.

I shake myself out of the spell, with a smile. "What did I say?" I ask him.

"You said you loved me. Was that a dream? Or was it real?"

Oh, that. An easy question to answer, a small word. Containing universes. I take his hand and stare down at it a moment, the strength in it relaxed and gentle - for the moment - under my fingers. Again, I could distract myself for who knows how long, just gazing at all the thousand individual pieces of him and marvel at the knowledge that they are for me to memorize over all the years that are suddenly open to us - free and forever. But I lean into him and put my lips on his jaw, and kiss him there, and lower - down to the lump of his throat. Then I whisper the answer into the hollow of his neck:

"Real."

 **THE END**

* * *

Author's Note: I'm not going to try to pretend this fic isn't 99% me fangirling the possibility of Katniss and Peeta sleeping together at a time and a place where it would have actually made a lot of sense. In fact, for a very long time, this story was essentially just an extended version of the prologue.

[I'm not criticizing the books, BTW - that would have obviously introduced an element of weight into the storyline at a place that Collins did not intend. Not everyone is, but I'm actually a huge fan of the subtlety of Katniss and Peeta's romance.]

It's really the fault of Sara Teasdale's poem, which, once used as the epigraph, goaded me into expanding it. At that point, I simply had to somehow get a fulfilled and happy Katniss out into the woods after a storm.

For the other 1% of my authorial intent … if you don't follow me on Tumblr, I also have written a bit about the books in a discussion group, and one of my more recent items of musing about the books is the extent to which Collins uses points of Katniss' sexual awakening as moments of transformation. Most obvious is the kiss on the beach in Catching Fire. But some less obvious examples are her reaction to Peeta's compliment (re: flames suiting her) and her reactions to his interview stories of her desirability (interview 1) and their fictional sex life (interview 2).

And of course the constant contrast with Gale, who embodies some obvious masculine-sexual stereotypes, but who is intriguingly confined to the places of her childhood - the woods, the hunting - and to a philosophy, I think, that she outgrows.

Since the most recent book discussion ended early, I never got to finish formulating those thoughts, so they ended up here - I wanted to look at the consequences of sex: not the pregnancy (which was honestly a leftover from an earlier draft of the story which went in a couple of different directions), but the emotional consequences and the amount and degree of transformation that would or would not be attained.

And, for a bonus, I decided that, since so many stories punish girls for having sex (let alone initiating it), I would do the opposite: hence the much lower body count.

I've had some criticism about this story not being terribly AU - and it's true! It wasn't intended to be very AU, really, but is even less so than I first imagined. The alternative universe is really Katniss' altered perception of Peeta. How that might affect the outcome of the war - how it might affect who was in place and where at the end … these were really somewhat secondary considerations. At any rate, there is always some extent to which a story writes itself. :)


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